What The Hell America!

Cuts to Medicaid won’t just hurt women—they will weaken families, workplaces and communities, making healthcare more expensive and inaccessible for everyone.

No one plans for a crisis: a complicated pregnancy, a sudden illness or a parent who needs care after a dementia diagnosis. These things happen to women every day, they are part of modern American life. That’s what Medicaid is for—to support families with essential care, especially working families caught in life’s unpredictability. 

Now, Congress is debating cuts that would gut Medicaid and set women back, threatening our health, economic well-being and futures. But the harm won’t stop there.

Women make up the majority of Medicaid recipients—more than 31 million women utilize Medicaid for healthcare. That’s because women are more likely to be caregivers and more likely to need long-term care as they age.

Plus, Medicaid covers more than 40 percent of births in the U.S. (as of 2024) and some states provide postpartum coverage—which can help address the dangerous maternal mortality crisis that ravages low income communities and puts Black women at particular risk.

Women are also more likely to experience poverty due to barriers often outside of their control, including labor discrimination, wage gaps and unpaid caregiving responsibilities.

When people can’t afford care, they don’t just disappear. They show up in emergency rooms with conditions that could have been treated earlier for much less cost. They miss work, get sicker, lose jobs and fall further into poverty. 

When Medicaid is cut, women lose access to critical care at the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

What does that look like?

It looks like a mother skipping prenatal visits because she can’t afford the bill. A grandmother forced into a nursing home instead of aging at home with support. A child with an untreated illness because their mother lost coverage.

When women lose access to healthcare, it doesn’t just hurt them—it hurts their children, their families, their workplaces and their communities. It hurts all of us.

Maybe you don’t need Medicaid today. Maybe you have good insurance and a steady job. But no one is immune from life’s unexpected turns, especially in times of growing economic instability. And we all have mothers, sisters, daughters and friends who could one day rely on Medicaid—for a serious illness, premature birth or parent’s sudden decline.

And if these cuts go through, Medicaid won’t be there for us.

When people can’t afford care, they don’t just disappear. They show up in emergency rooms with conditions that could have been treated earlier for much less cost. They miss work, get sicker, lose jobs and fall further into poverty. 

Medicaid ensures that if something bad happens, the people we love will get the care they need. Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act led to a 17 percent drop in postpartum hospitalizations, helping new mothers recover safely. Medicaid covers services like home health aides and nursing care, home and community-based services that allow for disabled and older people to live at home with dignity. And for children, Medicaid means access to checkups, vaccines and care that keeps them healthy—protecting their future and ours.

We all want to live in a world where people receive the care they need and where our neighbors are healthy. Medicaid makes that possible.

The hard-won progress achieved by the women’s movement has allowed more women to build stable lives for themselves and their families. Medicaid is a big part of that story. Even modest cuts would unravel that progress, leaving millions of women and their families vulnerable.

Women have fought for generations for access to healthcare, for economic stability, for the ability to care for their families without fear. We cannot let that progress be undone.

Because this isn’t about “other people.” It’s about all of us. And if Congress takes Medicaid away, we will all pay the price.