The Trump Administration is Quietly Sabotaging Open Enrollment and Putting the Lives and Health of Women of Color at Risk

With the Trump Administration doing everything in its power to undermine the health care law, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare,” enrolling in health insurance coverage is definitely an act of resistance.
Why? Because when Trump tries to undermine the ACA and keep people from signing up for health care what he’s really trying to do is take us back to how things were before – when women were discriminated against and charged more for health care; when trans patients were denied insurance coverage for necessary services; when discrimination in health care based on gender identity was commonplace; and when millions of women of color did not have health insurance or access to the care they needed.
That’s a throwback I’m not interested in.
We must resist the Trump Administration’s efforts to undermine people’s ability to enroll in health insurance, because if we don’t it hurts us all, but it disproportionately hurts women – particularly women of color. Especially since women of color still experience significant barriers to accessing health care.
For example:

Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States and are less likely to receive necessary maternity care.
While unintended pregnancy rates are declining, the rate of unintended pregnancy for Latina women is 58 per 1,000 women and the rate for Black women is 79 per 1,000 women as compared to white woman who experience unintended pregnancy at a rate of 33 per 1,000 women.
Black women have the highest rates of breast cancer, and Latina women have the highest rates of cervical cancer. And cancer is the leading cause of death for AAPI women.
Women of color are less likely to receive preventive services such as Pap smears.
Women of color have high rates of pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, asthma, hepatitis B, and HIV/AIDs, and face a higher rate of mortality for these conditions.

Insurance coverage under the ACA is intended to address some of these existing inequalities by providing services such as contraceptive coverage, STI screening, cancer screenings, and other essential health services all without cost sharing. And it has been working!
The ACA made it possible for many women of color who were previously uninsured to gain access to health care coverage. After implementation of the ACA the uninsured rates among Black women, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women, and Latina women declined significantly. And women of color continue to increase their use of critical health care services. These gains in coverage have helped to lessen some of the significant health disparities experienced by women of color.
All of this goes to show why it is SO important for people, particularly women of color, to have the opportunity to sign up for health insurance coverage during open enrollment. The last thing women need is another series of hurdles to getting coverage like the ones Trump is sneakily trying to impose. Which is why we need to resist – get the word out, enroll, tell everybody. The Trump Administration is gambling with the lives and health of women of color. So push back!

Enroll in health insurance coverage and support the ACA. The final deadline is December 15^th, although some states allow more time to enroll in Marketplace coverage. Go to gov and start shopping for the plan that best fits your needs.
Encourage your friends and family to enroll, and tell them why this is so important.
- If you need help or more information our open enrollment toolkit is an excellent resource.

Share our graphic. Just because the Trump Administration doesn’t want to educate people about the importance of health insurance coverage doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to your own networks and spread the word!