Voter anger over healthcare program rollbacks helped Democrats win both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, ending the Republican majorities that enacted last year’s cuts to federal Medicaid and food assistance programs.
As of this writing, Democrats have an eight-seat majority in the U.S. Senate, with races in Alaska and Mississippi still too close to call. In the House of Representatives, Democrats have a 92-seat majority but ballots in 21 races are still being counted.
Because healthcare was a major issue for voters, many say the election’s outcome is a clarion call to overturn the Trump administration’s Draconian policies and cutbacks in a wide range of family health-related programs and to restore health coverage to millions of Americans.
Healthcare Cliff Will Affect Millions
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the budget law called the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” will leave 10 million more people uninsured by 2034. While 1.3 million people have lost their health coverage this year, most losses are still to come — 5.2 million more to become uninsured in 2027 and 6.8 million in 2028, according to estimates.
It’s also likely that more people will lose their health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The CBO estimates that ACA enrollment will plummet from a peak of 22.4 million people in 2025 to 13.1 million next year.
Because of the Trump administration cuts to ACA subsidies, enrollees saw their premium payments increase by an average of 58%. Roughly 9% of people who had coverage under the ACA marketplace in 2025 lost coverage this year, and 17% of returning enrollees surveyed this summer weren’t confident they could afford premiums for all of this year.
Family advocates want the new Democratic majorities in Congress to respond and take action to repair the damage.
“Families and caregivers have suffered at the hands of this administration for the past two years, dealing with the rising cost of raising a family, dwindling access to quality childcare and failing maternal health care. We need our new leaders in Congress to stand ready to listen and support us,” said Danielle Atkinson, founder and executive director of Mothering Justice, a multi-state organization focused on economic, racial and gender justice for mothers and caregivers of color.
“At a time when Black mothers continue to face disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality, [U.S. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] and the Department of Health and Human Services should be strengthening evidence-based care — not dismantling the programs and services families depend on,” Atkinson continued. “Instead, this administration is rolling back targeted health equity initiatives, weakening efforts to identify and address systemic racial disparities and advancing proposals to eliminate funding for community-based maternal healthcare programs like Healthy Start and Title X,” Atkinson pointed out.
Food aid is shrinking, too. More than 5 million people already have lost vital SNAP benefits, and new cuts and work requirements are expected to affect most of the roughly 42 million people who rely on food stamps each month. Yet the administration is still pushing its Make America Healthy Again agenda.
“The MAHA agenda further undermines public health by elevating ideological biases over established science and promoting misinformation at the expense of proven public health guidance. Black and brown mamas and caregivers deserve better than policies that put our health and our families’ access to care at risk,” Atkinson said.
“This was a healthcare election. Full stop,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to protect and expand federal health programs. “It was a sweeping rejection of [President Donald] Trump and Republicans’ assault on healthcare, from slashing more than $1 trillion in healthcare funding, driving up costs and kicking 8 million Americans off the coverage they relied on to see a doctor.
All Eyes on RFK Jr.
“Now, with Democrats back in control of the House and Senate, Republicans must work to fix what they broke or there will be hell to pay in 2028,” he said, referring to the upcoming presidential election.
Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, CEO of the American Public Health Association, said he expects the new Congress to exercise greater accountability over HHS and Kennedy, including possibly ousting him from the job.
“We will be working very hard to make sure that Kennedy leaves the job, because he’s hurting people,” Benjamin said. “I believe people have died because of his administrative malpractice. That’s a hard statement, I know, and he may take issue with that statement. But the difference is, I’m a physician; he is not.”
He said the priority would be for the new Congress to “protect funding for science and hold these guys accountable to restore the integrity of the scientific and evidence-based processes that we have,” Benjamin said. “There’s always room for disagreements, but when they do things that are flagrantly malpractice, I would hope that the Congress will use their powers to bring these folks in to testify.”
Julie Scofield of Defend Public Health, a network of researchers, healthcare workers and advocates opposed to the administration’s public health policies, said that Kennedy’s “relentless malfeasance and dishonesty,” coupled with the administration’s “brutal” funding cuts, has created a public health emergency in the United States.
“The new and re-energized Congress can begin to stop the damage and start rebuilding by reasserting its constitutional authority over spending and investigating and fully airing Kennedy’s record of dishonesty and public health malpractice,” Scofield said. That process, she added, “should lead to impeaching and removing Kennedy from office.”
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