What The Hell America!

Proposed Republican cuts to Medicaid would deny low-income women, women of color and other vulnerable groups affordable access to birth control, prenatal care, STI treatment and other essential healthcare services.

Over 70 million people—including 13 million women of reproductive age—are enrolled in Medicaid, America’s biggest single health insurance program. Now, congressional Republicans are ready to take an axe to it.

If their proposed cuts to Medicaid are passed, it could cost American women thousands of dollars per year for reproductive health or family planning services alone. For low-income women, Black and Latina women and women from other vulnerable communities, those consequences could be devastating.

Medicaid is the only way to access affordable sexual and reproductive healthcare for many low-income women and young people—it pays for a range of reproductive health services, including birth control and family planning, annual wellness exams, breast and cervical cancer screenings, prenatal and postpartum care, and STI screenings and treatment for conditions like HIV. Under federal law, all Medicaid enrollees must also be able to receive family planning services without any out-of-pocket costs, and patients must be free to choose their own provider for these services without needing a referral.

If Medicaid funding is slashed, these essential services would become far less accessible. Millions of Americans could lose their coverage entirely, leading many American women and young people to worry if they will face higher out-of-pocket costs for basic care. That matters for sexual and reproductive health.

Without insurance:

Right now, Medicaid helps keep all these costs affordable, and millions of women can access these essential services without having to worry about how to pay for them.

For someone already living paycheck to paycheck, even a so-called moderate increase in out-of-pocket cost can mean going without care entirely. According to the Federal Reserve, more than one in four U.S. adults skipped medical care in 2022 because they couldn’t afford it.

Research also shows that when people face financial barriers to receiving care, they’ll delay or avoid treatment altogether. One recent study found more than half of respondents postponed seeking care because they lacked insurance or had a previous negative experience with unexpected costs. And those costs can be a real barrier to birth control use: one in five uninsured women report having to stop using their preferred method because they couldn’t afford it.

And the financial repercussions from Medicaid cuts won’t be evenly distributed. People in rural areas, people with disabilities and LGBTQI+ individuals—who already face additional hurdles to accessing inclusive care—will experience even greater barriers to care. Black and Latina women in particular are more likely to rely on Medicaid for some reproductive health services. Black and American Indian and Alaska Native women are also more likely to experience complications in pregnancy and childbirth—making continuous, affordable care all the more essential as those women decide to grow their families.

Congressional Republicans are ready and willing to strip this essential coverage away from American women in order to offer the rich and wealthy bigger tax cuts.

Medicaid is one of the most efficient health programs we have—Medicaid’s costs per beneficiary are substantially lower than for private insurance, and those costs have been growing more slowly than costs for people with private employer coverage. Cutting it isn’t smart budgeting—it’s a political choice to take healthcare away from those who need it most.

The conversation around Medicaid cuts often focuses on numbers and budgets, but behind every dollar slashed is a human being who might lose their access to contraception, prenatal care, STI treatment or other essential reproductive health services they rely on. Without that coverage, the out-of-pocket costs could put these services completely out of reach. We can’t let that happen.