A new report released by UnidosUS, the nation's largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, warns that a decade of progress in Latino healthcare is threatened by the Trump administration's cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
The findings suggest that more than 4 million Latinos are among the 14 million Americans projected to lose health insurance over the next decade due to the federal cuts to both programs.
The state with the nation's second highest number of uninsured Latinos — 858,000 — is Florida, according to the report. More than 71 million people with low incomes rely on Medicaid, which expanded under the Affordable Care Act. California has more that are likely uninsured.
A 'self-inflicted' crisis
The report paints a grim picture of a "self-inflicted" crisis, noting that the uninsured population is expected to grow by 8.7 million people between 2025 and 2028, a 33% increase. The surge would be more than twice the largest previous rise.
The impact is heavily concentrated in states like Florida with large Latino populations. According to the report, Latinos represent a massive share of the projected newly uninsured.
"Unlike major coverage losses of the past, which resulted from recession-driven layoffs and terminations of employer-based coverage, today's far larger coverage losses are entirely self-inflicted, resulting from policy choices made by Congress and the administration," said Stan Dorn, director of the Health Policy Project at UnidosUS.
The report identifies two primary sources for driving up the number of uninsured.
The first was from the expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits at the start of this year. It's expected to hike insurance costs by an average of $1,000 a year for more than 20 million Americans. The temporary enhanced tax credits had helped reduce insurance costs for a vast majority of ACA enrollees.
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Democrats forced a 43-day government shutdown late last year over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their 2026 political aspirations. President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash.
The second stemmed from the 2025 federal budget approved by Congress that eliminated more than $1 trillion in funding for Medicaid and the ACA, the largest cut in the nation's history. It was part of a sweeping tax-and-spending law — "One Big Beautiful Bill" — that Trump signed into law to encourage personal responsibility and halt those scamming the system.
Trump's immigration policies
The report also cites a "chilling effect" from Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement policies. Between 2023 and 2025, the percentage of immigrant parents avoiding public programs due to deportation fears jumped from 11% to 18%.
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"At a time when families across the country are struggling with rising costs, lawmakers are choosing to worsen healthcare affordability and accessibility, threatening to erase 14 years of hard-won gains under the Affordable Care Act," said Dorn. "Lawmakers must reverse course now to protect American healthcare."
Between 2010 and 2024, the uninsured rate among Latinos dropped from 31% to 17%, resulting in nearly 10 million Latinos gaining coverage, according to UnidosUS.
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