Conservatives who blasted Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders for casting a white man as her Medicaid freeloader ran into a problem, as a new report pulled her own state’s numbers.
About 60% of people enrolled in ARHOME, the Arkansas Medicaid program covered by Sanders’ new work requirements, are white, according to state Department of Human Services data cited by the Associated Press. About 18% are Black.
That puts white enrollees ahead of Black enrollees by more than 3 to 1, in the very program the ad was promoting.
The spot features “Brad,” a young white gamer covered in cheese puffs while taxpayers cover his health care. It set off a revolt on the right last week, led by Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh.
“Republicans don’t have the balls to do this ad with ‘Shaniqua’ as the villain,” Walsh posted. “Even though that would actually be an accurate portrayal of the problem at hand.”
Broader Medicaid figures tell the same story. White residents make up about 57% of Arkansas’ entire Medicaid population, according to KFF data cited by the Arkansas Advocate.
Nationally, Black Americans make up roughly 13% of the population and about 18.5% of Medicaid recipients, AP reported. Experts tie that overrepresentation to generations of structural economic disparities. White beneficiaries still outnumber Black beneficiaries nationwide, by about 38% to 19% among those under 65.
Even some Republicans balked at the critics. Robert Coon, an Arkansas political consultant who told the AP that work requirements are popular in the state, called the suggestion that Brad should have been Black “overtly racist” and “inaccurate.”
For her part, Sanders hasn’t budged. After the backlash, she posted on X that able-bodied people shouldn’t collect welfare simply because they choose not to work.
“We should never confiscate money from hard-working Arkansans to give it away to those who simply choose not to work at all,” campaign manager Jordan Powell told the AP.
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