With Medicaid cuts looming, misinformation spreads on social media
As Republican lawmakers move to cut Medicaid spending, misinformation about immigrants, especially about Latinos, is spreading on social media.
Spending cuts, immigration and Medicaid are at the top of the Washington agenda. That climate provides fertile ground for misinformation and myths to multiply on social networks. Some of the most common are those surrounding immigrants, Latinos and Medicaid.
These claims include assertions that Latinos who use Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people and those with disabilities, “do not work” and exaggerations of the percentage of people with Medicaid who are Latino.
The U.S. House voted narrowly Feb. 26 in favor of a budget blueprint that could lead to Medicaid cuts of up to $880 billion over a decade.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program are part of the national safety net, covering about 80 million people. Medicaid enrollment grew under the Affordable Care Act and after the start of the Covid pandemic but then started falling during the final two years of the Biden administration.
Immigrants’ impact on the nation’s health care system can be overstated in heated political rhetoric. Vice President JD Vance said on the campaign trail last year that “we’re bankrupting a lot of hospitals by forcing these hospitals to provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country.” PolitiFact rated that statement “False.”
Rating: 5