Appalachian advocates draw on personal experience
In the Summer of 2025, Congress and the president cut over a trillion dollars from Medicaid health insurance. Marcia Dinkins wants everyone to understand the life-and-death consequences.
This year, Dinkins’ adult daughter in rural Michigan was hospitalized multiple times with a raging infection of her pancreas, spleen, and gallbladder.
Surgery saved her daughter’s life. That surgery was possible because of Medicaid.
Dinkins is a parent and grandparent who does everything possible to protect the health and safety of her loved ones. When her kids were young, poor air quality and environmental hazards caused the family physical, mental, and financial anguish. Now, her three adult children have serious medical issues, including seizures and pulmonary embolisms.
The Dinkins family isn’t the only one impacted by federal healthcare policy. She founded the Black Appalachian Coalition to close race and gender health disparities. Through her work in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, she met Linda Brown. Like Dinkins, Brown is a staunch advocate for affordable health care, driven by personal experience.
Brown had a medical emergency and spent nine days in the hospital. “I didn’t know if I would live, yet I never had to wonder how I would pay. Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act saved my life,” she said. “[Affordable health care] let me focus on healing, on breathing, on being a mother, instead of drowning in fear of medical bills.”
As Brown recovered, she felt hopeful. She could take care of herself and her son, and help others in the community.
Now, she’s a Black Appalachian Coalition trainer and supports people to share their story and point us towards solutions. Ten million Americans will lose health care coverage because of the federal cuts. Without medical coverage and funding for health care institutions, people will lose access to maternal health care, mental health and drug treatment, and preventative and primary care. Health care providers will cut services or shut down.
“We will see an increase in emergency room visits, and the burden of the costs will be shifted to already stretched communities,” she said. Dinkins notes that hospitals rely on Medicaid payments to remain open. Rural areas already experience slow care, but with the cuts, we will have no care, she continued.
Rural residents are demanding that Congress reverse cuts, expand coverage, lower prescription drug prices, and ensure access to health care. “The current attacks on Medicaid are not just policy choices,” Dinkins said. “They are signing people’s death certificates before they ever see a physician, denying them the prescriptions and care that could save their lives.”