(SeaPRwire) –   When I was just 13 years old, my mother suffered a traumatic brain injury at work, and I was compelled to become her caregiver. With no assistance provided and no support system in place, the burden fell entirely on me. Over the following years, I helped her manage daily tasks such as standing, walking, dressing, eating, managing doctor’s appointments, and even paying bills. I effectively became the parent, while she became the child. I am not alone in this experience. According to AARP, there are over 5.4 million children in the U.S., particularly girls, currently caring for chronically ill and disabled family members. 

Last month, the GOP announced new proposed healthcare cuts as part of a $200 billion budget bill intended to fund military operations and expenses related to the war in Iran. This proposal could place additional strain on younger family members to assume caregiving responsibilities before they turn 18.

This news arrives as millions brace for planned reductions, expected to take effect this October, under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBA) that President Donald Trump signed into law last July. An estimated 11.8 million Americans who require Medicaid are expected to lose essential coverage—including up to 4.3 million individuals who rely on Medicaid Home Care Based Services (HCBS), such as in-home nursing care. For children and adolescents who are pushed into caregiving roles at a young age, the threat of losing this critical medical support is likely to be devastating. 

The impact of the OBBA and the new potential bill extends beyond the loss of healthcare access. These two legislations could push more young people to take on caregiving roles and exacerbate the existing crisis of caregiving youth in the U.S. It could also deepen the present mental health crisis impacting millions of young people in America.

I am intimately familiar with the significant toll of caregiving at a young age, a phenomenon well-documented by research. According to a study from the Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Journal, this vulnerable population of young people exhibits higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and suicide compared to their peers. 

I experienced these effects firsthand. For years, while caring for my mother, I struggled with debilitating panic attacks, substance abuse, and codependent relationships. It was not until I reached my late twenties that I sought therapy and recognized the severe impact the role of caregiving had on my mental and physical health and well-being into adulthood. 

I am not the only one. Another young caregiver I spoke with, Rimbatara Neomardhika (Neo), age 16, has been caring for his father over the last four years since he suffered a stroke. He shared his feelings with me, “Sometimes I get anxious and worry about what the future is going to be like,” he tells me. “I find myself losing focus and losing sleep because I’m worried about what’s going to happen to him. It’s hard to take care of someone as a child.” This relentless burden is rarely discussed. 

We frequently discuss the caregiving crisis in adult populations that affects 63 million caregivers. A recent Pew Research Center report indicated that 1 in 10 Americans provides care to aging parents age 65 or older, yet we do not talk enough about the children performing this work. Caregiving youth are often unseen. This unpaid essential work, done daily before and after school, leaves a significant imprint on the lives of the caregiver, and the weight of that emotional load is carried into adulthood. 

Although I was fortunate to be able to rebuild my life years after being a caregiver for my mother and had the means to afford treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure response prevention, the process was not easy. It resulted in me incurring additional mental healthcare costs and paying thousands to see specialists to work toward healing. 

The Republican proposal to further slash Medicaid would only create more adults like me, burdened by childhood caregiving trauma that takes time, sometimes decades, to overcome.

Fortunately, solutions exist to support these young caregivers amidst additional healthcare cuts. While some non-profit organizations, such as the American Association of Caregiving Youth (AACY), provide limited support in select states like Florida, much more work remains to be done. Change begins by prioritizing the safety and well-being of children who are caregiving for family members by recognizing and identifying this largely invisible population in the first place. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can provide them with the mental health support and respite care they deserve. The type of assistance I wish I had, which could have prevented years of struggle for me.

Professor Saul Becker, a researcher based in the United Kingdom who has studied young carers for three decades and helped create laws to protect children in the UK who are caregivers, tells me that the U.S. needs to adopt an “ideological and cultural belief that children are important.”

The Trump Administration claims to prioritize children, but it must act now to protect even the most unseen kids—the caregiving youth in the U.S.—before their mental health problems grow beyond repair. By doing this, it could prevent current and future young caregivers from a lifetime of struggle and save lives.