Alliance Alert: New data show that New York has made meaningful progress in reducing health disparities across racial and ethnic groups, outperforming most states in access to services, quality, and outcomes. Yet even with these gains, inequities persist, and new federal policy changes threaten to reverse that progress.
Disparities remain stark. While White New Yorkers experience some of the strongest health outcomes, American Indian and Alaska Native communities continue to face significantly worse access and quality of services. These gaps are not accidental. They reflect longstanding inequities that require sustained, intentional policy solutions.
New York’s progress has been driven by deliberate investments in access and equity, including expanded insurance coverage through programs like the Essential Plan and policies that support working families. These efforts demonstrate that when states prioritize equity, outcomes improve.
However, recent federal actions, including provisions in H.R. 1 that impose Medicaid work requirements and restrict eligibility, threaten to undermine these gains. By making it harder for people to maintain coverage, particularly immigrants and low-income individuals, these policies risk widening disparities and cutting people off from essential care.
At a time when the federal government is moving away from equitable service delivery and scaling back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, states like New York must lead. We cannot allow progress to be undone.
New York must take proactive steps to mitigate the harms of these federal policy shifts. That means protecting and expanding access to coverage, ensuring that vulnerable communities are not pushed out of services, and continuing to invest in supports that address the full range of health-related social needs. It also means strengthening community-based supports and ensuring that systems are designed to meet people where they are, not create new barriers to accessing services.
Health equity must remain a central priority. Ensuring that all New Yorkers have access to the services they need is not just a policy goal, it is a moral imperative.
The Alliance for Rights and Recovery will continue to advocate for policies that protect access, advance equity, and ensure that every New Yorker, regardless of race, income, or background, can receive the support they need to live and thrive.
New York’s Health Equity Gains at Risk as Trump Admin Rolls back Medicaid Access
By Amanda D’Ambrosio | Crain’s Health Care | April 29, 2026
New York has less severe health disparities across racial groups than most other states, new data shows — but experts anticipate that gaps will worsen amid new federal Medicaid restrictions, rollbacks in insurance subsidies and changes to vaccine policy.
Relative to most other states, New York had better health outcomes, access to care and quality of health services across five racial and ethnic groups between 2022 and 2024, according to a report released Wednesday by the Commonwealth Fund, a research foundation based on the Upper East Side. New York ranked third out of 39 states for health metrics among Black people and sixth out of 49 states for Hispanic individuals, the report found.
Still, gaps across racial groups remained. White people experienced the best health care outcomes, access and quality in New York, scoring in the 91st percentile, while the American Indian and Alaska Native population scored in the 23rd percentile — worse than any other New York group, the report shows.
New York has implemented policies that have helped close health disparities, such as providing low-cost insurance through the state’s Essential Plan to immigrants and mandating paid parental leave, the report said. But despite progress, disparities remain and stand to become wider due to federal policy changes.
The state has reduced disparities in part because of comprehensive insurance coverage, said Kristen Kolb, research associate at the Commonwealth Fund and one of the study authors. For example, roughly 14% of Hispanic New Yorkers were uninsured — lower than the 23% national average, according to the report.
But changes under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, also known as H.R. 1, could reduce coverage rates. The legislation includes new Medicaid work requirements that could boot individuals off their health plans, and eligibility restrictions that limit coverage options for immigrants, including people who are lawfully present.
“We are expecting to see things worsen, which is really a shame considering that we did see some improvement in 2021 and 2022,” Kolb said.