Hands Off Our Health Care Toolkit

A Civil Rights and health Equity Crisis

Since pandemic protections ended, Medicaid experienced the largest enrollment decline in its history. Fourteen million fewer Americans are enrolled in Medicaid today than at the height of the public health emergency. Children, seniors, and families cannot afford to go back.

The Medicaid program is a critical lifeline for Americans with lower incomes. It is also a major source of health insurance for people of color. Nearly 67% of children on Medicaid are children from Black, Latino, and Native/Indigenous communities.

Over a year after the Public Health Emergency ended, more than 25 million Americans were terminated from Medicaid during the unwinding or redetermination process.

• Over 5 million children are included in this staggering figure.
• 69% of disenrolled had their coverage terminated for "red tape" or procedural reasons like missing paperwork or system errors. Many of those disenrolled may still be eligible for coverage.
• Polling shows that nearly one-quarter of disenrolled people may still be uninsured.
• Research also indicates that Latino and African American enrollees were twice as likely to be terminated during unwinding; Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander people were 50% more likely to be terminated.

View the toolkit below to learn how to take action to keep eligible families covered in your community and fix a broken system.