Since 1965, Medicaid has helped provide affordable health insurance coverage to people with limited incomes and resources in the United States. However, politicians have tried to shrink and dismantle the program.
All people need and deserve equal access to comprehensive health care, including sexual and reproductive health care. But without Medicaid, tens of millions of people couldn’t access a wide range of health care services. That includes dental care, mental health care, and sexual and reproductive health care — such as birth control, family planning, annual exams, prenatal/maternity care, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and STD testing and treatment.
Groups facing discrimination and systemic oppression in the health care system are more likely to have low incomes and more likely to use Medicaid — including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and women. These groups would be the most hurt by losing access to Medicaid. The free and low-cost health insurance coverage that Medicaid provides particularly helps women access essential health care.
Racism and discriminatory public policy have created systemic and economic barriers that make Black women and Latinas more likely to have low incomes and be enrolled in Medicaid than white women. Medicaid coverage also is critical to closing the gap in health care access for women of color.
Those same systemic and economic barriers have made it disproportionately difficult for many people of color to access health care. As a result, people of color have worse access to reproductive health care — and worse health outcomes.
Medicaid coverage for pregnancy, birth control, and other sexual and reproductive health issues is critical in helping to close the devastating gap in health outcomes for women of color.
Discrimination and harassment also leave LGBTQ+ people disproportionately likely to live in poverty or without health coverage.
This makes Medicaid a vital program for the health of LGBTQ+ communities. Thanks to Medicaid expansion, over 500,000 lesbian, bisexual, and gay people gained health care coverage under Medicaid between 2013 and 2016.
Cuts to Medicaid significantly affect Planned Parenthood patients, nearly half of whom get their health care through Medicaid.
Every year, 2.4 million people rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for essential health care services, like birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings. Many of these patients — particularly women of color and people in rural or medically underserved areas — are covered by Medicaid and would have nowhere else to turn to for care, if patients are blocked from using Medicaid to access care at Planned Parenthood.
Extreme politicians have waged attacks on Medicaid. They have consistently endangered up to 72 million people with Medicaid coverage — who are disproportionately women of color.
These attacks include cutting trillions of dollars from the program, limiting the ability of people to make decisions about their health care, and greenlighting stigmatizing proposals, like work requirements, that cause people to lose coverage.
Medicaid work requirements are another way that politicians take critical health coverage away from people with low incomes. Prior to COVID-19, these discriminatory requirements caused thousands of people to lose their Medicaid coverage. Several states have adopted, and more states tried to adopt, Medicaid work requirements.
Medicaid work requirements do not help people to find employment and are ineffective in lowering unemployment. Work requirements also push people off of Medicaid. Here’s how:
Work requirements for Medicaid block access to needed health care and services, particularly for women. Almost two-thirds of those who could lose Medicaid coverage due to work requirements are women. This stems, in part, from the fact that women are more likely to provide informal and undervalued caregiving or have low-wage jobs that do not provide health care coverage.
Without Medicaid, too many Americans — disproportionately women of color — would be unable to access basic health care.