Right now, Republicans are charging ahead with their plan to cut health care in order to hand out tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. As of today, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation is estimating that Republicans will cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the ACA, which would throw nearly 14 million Americans off their coverage, leaving them uninsured. This is the largest cut to Medicaid in history. Any Republican member of Congress who calls this bill a compromise or moderate is purposely misleading their constituents. It will cause the same harm as their previous bills just wrapped in different paper. These health care cuts will be life-and-death for millions, ripping health care away from seniors, children with disabilities, pregnant women, and hard-working families across the country. It’s disgraceful that anyone will be denied necessary and, often, life-saving care to give another tax break to Donald Trump and his wealthy friends. Not one dollar should be taken from our health care system to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Republican reconciliation package:
- Rips health care away from 14 million Americans, including seniors, children, veterans, and people with disabilities, to pay for tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk and corporations such as Big Pharma.
- Cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the ACA to pay for handouts to the wealthiest Americans.
- Contains a $5 billion giveaway to drug companies that will drive up the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and taxpayers.
- Adds miles of red tape for working families struggling to afford health care to kick them off the rolls in order to pay for tax breaks for the ultrawealthy.
- Shutters countless rural hospitals by devastating funding for Medicaid expansion across 14 states and limiting states’ ability to fund Medicaid.
The Policies Underlying The Biggest Loss of Health Care in American History:
The following policies underlie the biggest loss of health care in American history and will kick millions off their coverage, drive premiums through the roof, increase costs for families struggling to get by, raise drug prices for seniors, and make it harder for families to get covered and stay covered.
- Executes The Largest Cuts To Medicaid In History. Republicans are taking away Medicaid so they can give away tax breaks to billionaires, regardless of what they call it. Whether they do it through devastating cuts to federal funding or the addition of burdensome bureaucratic reporting measures known as work requirements, they will have the same result – taking away Medicaid from people who are counting on it.
- Includes billions in cuts to Medicaid Expansion funding to over a dozen states. Republicans are punishing states with cuts to funding for Medicaid expansion. In doing so, Republicans are putting the health care of nearly 12 million Americans across 14 states at risk in the crosshairs of the Republican war on immigrants, including children. States like Illinois stand to lose the most from this policy where nearly 1 million Illinoisans rely on Medicaid expansion for health care, and the state is required to repeal the program altogether without full federal funding. The reduction in Medicaid expansion funding may also force over 60 rural hospitals across the states affected to close, including in Minnesota, Vermont, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, California, and New York.
- Takes away critical financial incentive for states to expand Medicaid, leaving millions of low-income families across the country with nowhere to turn for health care. 10 states have yet to fully expand Medicaid: Georgia, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Yet, at a time when people are struggling to afford the cost of living and facing economic uncertainty, Republicans are ripping away the possibility of health coverage from millions in these states. States without Medicaid expansion require that some families earn as little as $4,130 a year in order to qualify for Medicaid.
- Limits the ways states fund Medicaid, including provider taxes and state directed payments, which will shutter struggling hospitals and make it nearly impossible for states to manage the burden of the largest cuts to Medicaid in history without kicking millions off their coverage and taking away benefits.
- Hikes Premiums For Over 24 Million Americans. Republicans are ending tax credits for working families, raising costs and ripping away health care from millions of Americans. If Republicans take away these tax credits, they’ll be taking away health care. Costs will skyrocket by an average of $2,400 for millions of families, and 5 million people will lose their health care altogether. Republicans are going to raise costs on middle-class families while they hand out tax breaks to the very rich and biggest corporations. Families will pay up to 90 percent more for their health care, while billionaires and CEOs will get another huge tax break.
- Adds Wasteful Paperwork Requirements Designed To Throw Millions of Eligible Americans Off Their Health Care To Pay For Tax Breaks For The Wealthy And Corporations. Work requirements are nothing more than purposely burdensome paperwork designed to kick millions of people off the rolls to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. Work reporting requirements put coverage for up to 36 million Americans at risk and 15,400 lives at risk annually. Taking away Medicaid doesn’t help people find jobs. In fact, Medicaid helps people stay employed and making unemployed people sicker makes it more difficult for them to find work, especially in this tough economy. A government bureaucrat shouldn’t get to decide if someone is “too able-bodied” for health care. People with conditions like severe pain, fatigue, or mental illness may not qualify as “disabled enough” to be exempted from work requirements. Work reporting requirements have been a colossal waste of money in every state that has implemented them and have been shown to increase paperwork but not job growth.
- Increases Health Care Costs For Families Struggling To Get By. Republicans are raising health care costs by demanding new payments for millions of hardworking families who are struggling to get by, all to give tax breaks to corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk.
- Drives Up Prescription Drug Costs And Pads Big Pharma’s Profits. Republicans are slipping a huge giveaway to Big Pharma into a reconciliation package already loaded with tax breaks for CEOs and greedy corporations like drug companies, meaning Big Pharma’s multimillion-dollar investments at Mar-A-Lago are paying off big time. Their scheme to exempt drugs that treat rare disease from negotiation creates a major loophole for drug companies to exploit to continue padding their profits and price gouging the seniors who rely on these drugs.
- Makes It Harder For Families To Get Covered And Stay Covered. Republicans are codifying key parts of the 2025 Marketplace Sabotage rule proposed by CMS in March into law. This rule is estimated to kick 2 million people off their Marketplace coverage, increase premiums for millions of people, and make enrolling in a plan more difficult. These changes will make it harder for families to enroll in ACA plans by shortening the enrollment period and taking away low-income families’ ability to sign up for coverage outside of the six-week enrollment period. These policies establish more paperwork burdens for enrolling and proving eligibility for tax credits and targets vulnerable communities that have historically faced barriers to accessing health care.