How States Can Improve Medicaid Outreach Among Unenrolled And Eligible Latine Populations

Fifteen years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, 40 states and Washington, DC, have now adopted expanded Medicaid coverage for adults ages 18 to 64. These legislative efforts have extended insurance coverage to 21.3 million people nationwide and reduced the national uninsurance rate by nearly half. Despite this progress, the budget reconciliation bill, as recently signed into law, initiates sweeping changes to federal funding of Medicaid, ultimately reshaping the public insurance program as we know it. At the same time, major coverage gaps continue. Hispanic individuals 64 years old or younger comprise the largest portion of the uninsured but eligible population (36 percent), illustrating the need for more effective outreach to Latina/o/e/x (herein referred to as Latine) communities. Before Medicaid expansion, Latines represented one in three uninsured individuals. Medicaid expansion paired with community-based outreach have helped partially close this disproportionate gap in states such as North Carolina, enrolling more than 61,000 Latines through the expansion. Increased attention during expansion also increased enrollment among those previously eligible but unaware, further demonstrating the need for increased outreach to eligible, marginalized populations such as Latine communities. These policy successes highlight the risks that reversals of Medicaid expansion efforts would pose to this population.