Medicaid expansion would help honor women’s suffrage in the United States
One hundred years ago, the Tennessee legislature approved the 19th Amendment, which recognized the right to vote for women. Capping 75 years of struggle, Tennessee’s action provided the crucial 36th state needed to ratify the amendment.
Three generations of women sacrificed to win the vote in order to achieve a better life for themselves and those they loved. They used the vote to win greater financial security for their families and improvements in public health. And now, as the world grapples with a devastating pandemic, legislators should honor the suffragists’ legacy by acting swiftly to extend health care and financial security to hundreds of thousands of Tennessee women and their loved ones.
Expansion would benefit women, lead to racial healing
Tennessee was slow to do the right thing 100 years ago, but we got there. Tennessee is again lagging behind, but we can still catch up. We are one of only 12 states that fail to make use of federal Medicaid funds to extend health coverage to low-wage, uninsured workers.
Tennessee’s unused share of those federal funds amounts to $1.4 billion a year.
Over 300,000 uninsured Tennesseans qualify, a number that could rise by another 86,000 by December, as employment-related health coverage ends for the tens of thousands who lose their jobs. Those states that have used the federal funds to expand coverage have seen fewer preventable deaths, lower rates of medical bankruptcy and fewer rural hospital closures.
Federal funding for health care improves states’ capacity to deal with the pandemic. And because women are more likely to be working in low-wage, front line jobs that don’t provide health coverage, they have the most to gain from expanding Medicaid.
By expanding Medicaid, Tennessee’s lawmakers can also take an overdue step toward racial healing. The women’s suffrage campaign occurred at the height of the Jim Crow Era and was tainted by racism. White suffragists often shunned Black women and used racist appeals to convince white men to approve votes for women.
How to end long-standing health disparities
Expanding Medicaid is a concrete way to honor Black women who fought for women’s suffrage. The vital contributions of courageous Black women, who were among the most consistent advocates for women’s suffrage, have gone unrecognized for far too long. And sharp racial health disparities that existed in their time persist today, making an urgent demand on our state’s conscience.
Black Tennesseans are 40% more likely to be uninsured, three times as likely to become infected with COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from it as white adults. Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy related complication, and Black babies are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday. While States that have expanded Medicaid have significantly reduced racial disparities in coverage and have saved lives, improved access to health care and strengthened families’ financial security.
Our neighbors in Missouri just became the fifth Republican state in which voters have approved Medicaid expansion through a ballot initiative. Tennessee’s constitution does not provide for ballot initiatives. We must therefore rely on the governor and our legislators to adopt this important reform, just as women had to rely on the leadership of the governor and legislators 100 years ago to achieve women’s suffrage.
We are counting on our elected leaders to make sure that Tennessee once again does the right thing.