August 23, 2025
The Medicaid cuts contained in Trump’s so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ are poised to potentially disproportionately impact Black women and children.
The Medicaid cuts contained in Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” are poised to potentially disproportionately impact Black women and children, standing to make already divergent health outcomes for Black Americans even worse.
According to Politico, the NAACP is warning that in addition to the adverse effects on Medicaid, Trump’s budget is also anticipated to detrimentally affect high-poverty schools, maternal mortality rates, and Black families in need of critical care.
Per research from the Pew Research Center, Black Americans, who constitute approximately 14% of the population, make up more than 20% of people who are on Medicaid, and 60% of all Black children are enrolled in the program, which further highlights the necessity of the program’s funding.
As Patrice Willoughby, the chief of policy and legislative affairs for the NAACP, told Politico, “States right now are having to make decisions on what services they’re going to cut … and their allocation of funding toward this population. It is unconscionable that Congress would leave American children, which are the future of the country, without the supports that they need and the interventions that they need to contribute meaningfully to develop to their fullest potential.”
She continued, “We know that Black boys, particularly if they’re having a learning disability, you’ve got to catch it by third grade in order to be able statistically to remediate it. Schools can often be the first points of contact to identify a health problem with a lower-income child that is affecting their schoolwork, and then make the appropriate referrals.”
Willoughby is far from the only advocate pointing out the potential disaster of the cuts to Black families, in May, Capital B News spoke to a Black 60-year-old grandmother who lives in Memphis, Tennessee; Arlita Walker, who represents the average Medicaid recipient.
Like many Americans on Medicaid, she was apprehensive about the looming cuts. Not long after speaking to the outlet, Walker, who had been having health issues, died on June 3.
As U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) told the outlet at the time, “Medicaid has been a lifeline for millions of families in this country, but it has also helped us address critical disparities in health for Black communities. Without access to this care, we risk exacerbating deep-rooted inequalities and putting lives at risk.”
According to The Century Foundation, Medicaid doubles as a source of healthcare for students and a source of payment for school-based health services and across the country, in both Democratic and Republican controlled districts, as a direct result of losing access to Medicaid, millions of students stand to suffer lower academic achievement, higher rates of absenteeism, poorer mental health, and even wider educational disparities.
This kind of semi-universal coverage is spotlighted by a March KFF poll that indicates that a minority of Americans (17%) want to see Medicaid cuts and over half of Americans (53%) have either themselves or a family member has received Medicaid assistance at some point, further highlighting the disconnect between the Republican Party and the constituents they claim to represent.
According to an analysis of the Medicaid cuts in context with the Trump administration’s favorable tax policy for the rich, by the Economic Policy Institute, the cuts are expected to have a disastrous effect on the country in general.
“These cuts will not just cause harm to individual families; they will cascade, leading to hospital closures in rural counties, higher medical debt, lower earnings from future workers who will suffer from poorer health decades from now, and could even put upward pressure on federal budget deficits in the long run. In the very near term, these cuts will make the United States economy far more vulnerable to any recessionary shock. Nothing about this policy package—tax cuts mostly for the rich and benefit cuts for the vulnerable—is good for the vast majority of families in this country,” the Economic Policy Institute warned.
RELATED CONTENT: How The Senate’s Plan For Massive Medicaid Cuts Will Hinder The African American Community
