Medicaid Is Essential to Health Equity
Medicaid provides health coverage to a disproportionate share of Black, Latino, and Indigenous Americans, communities that have historically faced systemic barriers to accessing quality health care. Approximately 30 percent of Black Americans and 25 percent of Latino Americans rely on Medicaid for their health coverage, compared to about 15 percent of white Americans. For Indigenous communities, Medicaid works alongside the Indian Health Service to provide critical coverage that would otherwise be unavailable.
These coverage rates reflect not a dependence on government programs but rather the enduring impact of structural inequities in employment, wealth, and access to employer-sponsored insurance. Medicaid helps bridge these gaps, providing communities of color with access to preventive care, chronic disease management, maternal health services, and mental health treatment.
Since the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility, racial disparities in uninsured rates have narrowed significantly. States that adopted expansion saw the Black uninsured rate drop by nearly half, demonstrating that Medicaid expansion is one of the most powerful tools available for advancing health equity.
Cuts Would Deepen Existing Disparities
Proposals to cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid would land hardest on communities that already face the greatest health challenges. Black Americans experience higher rates of chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease — conditions that require consistent access to care and medication. Stripping Medicaid coverage from millions of people would mean that many of these conditions go unmanaged, leading to preventable complications, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Latino communities, which make up a growing share of the Medicaid population, would also face severe consequences. Many Latino workers are employed in industries like agriculture, food service, and construction that are less likely to offer employer-sponsored insurance. For these workers and their families, Medicaid is often the only affordable coverage option available.
An estimated 7.5 million Americans would lose Medicaid coverage under the proposed cuts, and data shows that communities of color would bear a disproportionate share of that burden. Rolling back Medicaid would effectively widen the racial health gap that decades of policy work have sought to close.
Barriers to Care That Medicaid Helps Overcome
For communities of color, Medicaid does more than provide an insurance card — it removes barriers that have long prevented equitable access to health care. Language barriers, transportation challenges, distrust rooted in historical medical abuse, and geographic isolation from quality providers all contribute to health disparities. Medicaid-funded community health centers, which serve a patient population that is majority people of color, are designed to address many of these obstacles.
These federally qualified health centers provide culturally competent care, offer services in multiple languages, and are located in the neighborhoods where they are needed most. Medicaid funding is the financial backbone of this safety-net system. Without it, many of these centers would be forced to reduce hours, cut staff, or close entirely — leaving communities of color without their most trusted source of care.
Protecting Medicaid Means Protecting Equity
The fight to protect Medicaid is inseparable from the fight for racial justice in health care. Every proposed cap, work requirement, or block grant that would reduce Medicaid funding carries the potential to widen disparities that the program has helped narrow. More than 20 million Americans already face what advocates call a "sick tax" — higher costs and reduced access driven by policy choices that value budget cuts over human health.
Communities of color have the most to lose if Medicaid is gutted, but they also have the most to gain from protecting and strengthening the program. Ensuring that Medicaid remains fully funded and accessible is one of the most concrete steps policymakers can take to build a more equitable health care system for all Americans.