Medicaid Healthcare Crisis: The System Is Collapsing

Medicaid Is America’s Real Healthcare System — And They’re Gutting It

If you really want to understand how broken America’s healthcare system is, don’t look at hospitals. Look at Medicaid.

The truth is, we’re already deep in a Medicaid healthcare crisis — a growing Medicaid healthcare crisis — and it’s coming for more than just the poor.

Not because it’s the “welfare” system — but because it’s the only thing still standing between tens of millions of Americans and total medical bankruptcy.

Medicaid doesn’t just serve the poor. It doesn’t just serve the “lazy.” It doesn’t just serve so-called “illegals” — despite what the loudest blue-check accounts on X want you to believe.

It serves America. Period. And that’s exactly why the Medicaid healthcare crisis is accelerating — because it does serve America.

And now they’re gutting it.

The Biggest Lie in Healthcare (The Medicaid Healthcare Crisis No One Wants to Talk About)

Let’s get this out of the way first: Medicaid is not some niche welfare program.

It is, by raw numbers, the largest healthcare provider in the United States. Over 89 million Americans — according to KFF’s Medicaid Enrollment tracker — were enrolled at the end of 2024. And that’s after states began aggressively purging their rolls.

That means one-quarter of this country relies on Medicaid not to die from preventable illness.

Who are they?

Children.
Low-income working families.
Seniors in nursing homes.
People with disabilities.
Cancer patients.
Veterans.
Former foster kids.

It’s the backbone of American healthcare — not some “extra” for the lazy. And yet, if you spend ten minutes on social media or watch any cable panel, you’d think it was an open buffet for undocumented immigrants or freeloaders.

That’s the myth. Here’s the reality: most Medicaid recipients are U.S. citizens. Most are employed. And most are hanging on by a thread — caught in the middle of a growing Medicaid healthcare crisis.

Many are caregivers. Many are one medical bill away from foreclosure. And almost all are trapped in a system where health is a luxury, not a right.

The Purge, Quiet and Cruel

So what’s happening now?

After the COVID emergency ended, states were allowed to resume “redetermining” who qualifies for Medicaid. That’s policy-speak for kicking people off.

And kick them off they did. Over 20 million people have lost Medicaid coverage since 2023.

Not because they suddenly got rich. Not because they lied. Not because they were gaming the system.

But because:

A letter was sent to the wrong address.
A document didn’t get uploaded in time.
A phone call got missed.

This is what experts call “procedural disenrollment.”

What I call it? Bureaucratic eugenics.

You create a maze so complicated, so opaque, so dehumanizing, that people give up — or get lost — and then pretend it’s their fault.

And that’s by design.

This isn’t about saving money. Medicaid is cheap compared to private insurance. It’s about disciplining the poor, shrinking the social safety net, and giving the illusion that “personal responsibility” is being restored.

This is austerity with a smiley face sticker.

Medicaid Is the System — Not the Exception

If you’ve ever worked a retail job with no benefits, you probably relied on Medicaid.

If you’ve ever made $17 an hour and had a kid, you probably qualified.

If you’ve ever had to choose between insulin and rent, you know what I’m talking about.

Medicaid isn’t a side program. It’s the de facto healthcare system for America’s working class.

And the attacks on it are just a more polite form of class warfare.

Private insurance only “works” if you’re young, healthy, and salaried. If you’re not? Good luck.

Premiums for employer-sponsored plans now top $24,000 a year for a family. Deductibles are often $5,000 or more.

So people delay care. Or avoid it entirely.

That’s why Medicaid is the only real game in town for people who wash dishes, drive school buses, or check groceries — the people who actually make this country function.

It’s also the only option for people working multiple part-time jobs without benefits, gig workers, and those navigating under-the-table employment to survive. The working class isn’t choosing Medicaid — they’ve been forced onto it by a system designed to extract more while offering less.

Let’s Talk About the Cost

Critics say Medicaid is too expensive. That it’s bloated. Unsustainable.

But here’s what they don’t say:

Medicaid spends less per enrollee than private insurance.
Administrative costs are far lower.
It covers things private plans won’t touch — long-term care, developmental disabilities, trauma recovery, etc.

And unlike private plans, it doesn’t profit from denying care.

So when someone tells you we “can’t afford” Medicaid? They’re lying.

We can afford endless wars, corporate bailouts, and defense budgets larger than the next 10 countries combined — but helping a paraplegic veteran get a home nurse? That’s too much?

Give me a break.

If Medicaid were a weapons system, it’d be funded into the stratosphere. But because it helps the poor instead of defense contractors, it’s treated as a budgetary burden.

The Immigrant Boogeyman

Let’s settle this once and for all: Undocumented immigrants are not draining Medicaid.

In fact, in most cases, they’re not eligible at all.

The only exceptions are emergency care and childbirth, and even then, states get minimal federal reimbursement.

Meanwhile, immigrants — documented and undocumented — pay billions in taxes, including payroll taxes that fund programs they’ll never benefit from.

So the idea that cutting Medicaid is somehow “taking it away from illegals” is just political misdirection. It’s scapegoating. And it’s meant to pit working-class people against each other instead of asking why corporate healthcare is robbing all of us blind.

Divide and conquer: it’s the oldest trick in the book. And it works best when people are desperate and misinformed.

The Corporate Parasites Circling

Here’s what they don’t want you to notice: every time Medicaid gets gutted, a private contractor gets richer.

Just look at the rise of “Medicaid managed care organizations” — private insurers that take government money to “manage” patients.

They routinely:

Deny services
Delay procedures
Underpay doctors
Skim profits

And when things get bad enough? They blame the state.

It’s the same old neoliberal shell game: privatize the profit, socialize the loss.

Even worse, as states purge recipients, some of those MCOs get bonuses for reducing enrollment. Let that sink in: they’re financially incentivized to strip healthcare from the poor.

Medicaid is being looted in plain sight — and the looters are wearing suits.

What This Really Is

The ongoing Medicaid healthcare crisis has nothing to do with trimming budgets. It’s about disciplining the underclass.

It’s about telling struggling Americans:

If you lose your job, you lose your doctor.
If your kid gets sick, you better hope you qualify.
If you’re too poor to afford coverage, that’s your problem — not society’s.

And they’ll wrap it in pretty language about “personal responsibility,” “fiscal prudence,” and “restoring integrity.”

But it’s not about any of that.

It’s about removing even the illusion that the state owes anything to the people who make it function.

The End Game

If they can gut Medicaid and convince people it’s justified, everything else is fair game:

Social Security
SNAP
VA care
Medicare

Because once you break the social contract — once you convince people that healthcare is a luxury, not a right — it’s a short slide into full-blown austerity.

And the worst part? It’ll be sold to you as “reform.”

They’re not just rewriting policy — they’re rewriting what it means to live in a society.

What We Actually Need

Automatic enrollment: If you lose your job, Medicaid should kick in automatically.
Universal eligibility for children and pregnant women — no exceptions.
Expansion of in-home services so seniors and disabled folks can live with dignity.
Accountability for managed care abuse.
Public hospitals and clinics funded like national infrastructure.
A public narrative that values care — not just cost-efficiency.

In short: treat healthcare like what it is — a basic necessity in a developed nation.

Final Word

This Medicaid healthcare crisis affects working Americans. It’s a firewall between them and literal destitution. And the people trying to dismantle it know that.

They want you to believe it’s broken so they can break it further — and replace it with something worse.

Don’t fall for it.

Don’t buy the narrative that only “certain people” deserve care. Don’t let them pit you against your neighbor. Don’t let them gaslight you into thinking poverty is a moral failure.

Because if Medicaid falls, it won’t be just the poor who suffer.

It’ll be all of us.

For what happens next, read Part 2: After Medicaid — Welcome to the Free Market Morgue