Medicaid and Reproductive Health

All people need and deserve to get comprehensive health care, including sexual and reproductive care. Since 1966, Medicaid has been a source of free and low-cost health insurance coverage for people with low incomes across the country. Medicaid coverage includes essential sexual and reproductive health services like birth control, wellness exams, prenatal and maternity care, breast and cervical cancer screenings, gender-affirming care, and STI testing and treatment, and HIV treatment and prevention.
 

Who Medicaid Serves

Due in large part to systemic racism and discrimination many communities across the country are forced to overcome huge obstacles to get the basic health care all people deserve, and are less likely to have access to economic and education advancement. As a result, people with lower incomes need publicly funded health care programs. The Medicaid program helps more than 70 million people — especially women, people with disabilities, communities of color, and LGBTQ+ people — get essential health care services.
 

Medicaid, Women, and Families

• Approximately one in five adult women of reproductive age, plus trans and nonbinary people, use Medicaid to get low- or no-cost essential health care.

• Of the adult women enrolled in Medicaid, about two-thirds are of reproductive age (19-49).
• According to a 2015 survey, Medicaid pays for 75% of all public funds spent on family planning services like birth control.

Medicaid also covers 41% of births in the country.
 

Medicaid: Black Women and Latinas

Women of color are more likely to be enrolled in Medicaid; this includes 4.4 million Black women, 5.7 million Latinas, and 1.4 million Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) women. Systemic racism and structural barriers to health care make it especially hard to get high-quality, affordable sexual and reproductive care.

Medicaid covers 65% of births to Black mothers.

Among those under 65 who use Medicaid, about half are Black, Hispanic, or AANHPI.

Compared with white women, Black women and Latinas have far worse access to reproductive health care — and, as a result, worse health outcomes. 

• The cervical cancer mortality rate for Black and Indigenous women is 65% higher than for white women. Black women are almost three times more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes than white women. 
• Hispanic women have a higher rate of getting cervical cancer and the second highest rate of dying from it.
• Black women represent the majority of women living with HIV as well as the majority of the new diagnoses among women.
• Black women have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, which all increase the risk of pregnancy complications.

Greater access to health care can help improve health outcomes for Black women and Latinas. Medicaid coverage for sexual and reproductive care, like STI testing and treatment, pregnancy, and birth control, is critical to close the devastating gap in health outcomes.
 

Medicaid and LGBTQ+ Communities

LGBTQ+ people are far more likely to experience poverty or a lack of health coverage. Discrimination and harassment create unfair barriers to care. 

• In 2019, roughly three in 10 LGBTQ Americans faced difficulties getting essential health care due to cost issues, including more than half of trans people.
• Nearly 1.2 million LGBT people have Medicaid as a primary source of health coverage, with higher rates of coverage for people of color and trans people.
• Collectively, LGBT people had a poverty rate of 17% in 2021 — much higher than the 12% rate for straight cisgender people.
• 17.5% of lesbian cisgender women and 19.9% of bisexual cisgender women experience poverty, compared to 13.6% of straight cisgender women.
• 15% of LGBTQ people report postponing or avoiding medical treatment due to discrimination, including nearly three in 10 transgender people.
• Trans people face even more barriers to health care, including one in three who say they had to teach their doctor about trans people to get appropriate care.

Medicaid is for the health of LGBTQ+ communities. Thanks to Medicaid expansion, over 500,000 LGB people gained Medicaid coverage between 2013 and 2016. And 152,000 trans people are enrolled in Medicaid. While not all trans people need or want gender-affirming care, for those who do, it is essential.

However, as states escalate the passage of bans on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, trans people are more likely to report obstacles to care, including being denied needed care.
 

Medicaid and Planned Parenthood

Every year, more than 2 million people rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for essential health care services, like birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings. Over half of these patients are covered by publicly funded programs, like Medicaid. In 2021 Planned Parenthood health centers provided care to one in 10 (11%) women of reproductive age who were on Medicaid and received family planning services.
 

Attacks on Medicaid — and Planned Parenthood

When politicians attack Medicaid, they endanger the health and lives of more than 70 million people who need the program to get basic care.

Their attacks — including huge funding cuts, attempts to purge Medicaid rolls, and bans on the kinds of health care the program covers — hurt everyone, especially Black women and Latinas who disproportionately rely on Medicaid. 

Work requirements are a common tactic used by politicians to strip people from Medicaid coverage. It's designed to push a narrative that suggests those who use Medicaid are undeserving. The fact is two-thirds of people with Medicaid coverage are employed. 

Another political ploy to undermine the Medicaid program, commonly used by lawmakers who oppose abortion, is to use their personal beliefs to drive policy. Politicians try to block patients who use Medicaid from getting their care at Planned Parenthood health centers — although federal law gives patients the right to choose their own qualified provider. Attacks on Planned Parenthood patients who use Medicaid could deny essential sexual and reproductive care to millions of people.

The evidence is clear: States with worse health outcomes are the same states that "defund" Planned Parenthood health centers.

• After Texas excluded Planned Parenthood Texas affiliates and other qualified family planning providers from the state’s family planning program in 2012, nearly 45,000 fewer women got care through the program and nearly 30,000 fewer patients got birth control, cancer screenings, and other preventive care. Within five years, 41% fewer women got contraceptive care through the program.
• After Iowa slashed Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood health centers in the state, there was an 86% decline in the number of people who used Iowa’s family planning services.
• In Indiana, state funding cuts forced the Planned Parenthood health center in Scott County to close its doors in 2013. This Planned Parenthood health center was the community’s only provider of HIV testing and education. Scott County didn’t have any testing sites until 2015, after an unprecedented HIV outbreak that then Governor Mike Pence deemed a public health emergency.
   

How You Can Fight for Medicaid

Say “I Fight For Planned Parenthood.”

Support the millions of patients who depend on Planned Parenthood health centers for essential care — and their freedom to see their trusted provider. Learn how you can defend patients and the lifesaving, life-changing services Planned Parenthood health centers provide. 

Know This: Patients Need Planned Parenthood Health Centers — Many Have Nowhere Else to Turn.

Planned Parenthood health centers are an irreplaceable part of the country's health care system. While some lawmakers maintain that the majority of patients can go elsewhere for the services Planned Parenthood health centers provide, nothing could be further from the truth. Sixty-four percent of Planned Parenthood health centers are located in rural and medically underserved areas. The health threats lawmakers' attacks pose to patients who use Medicaid and other public funds are very real. 

This page was last updated May 2025.