The American health care system is in a full-blown crisis after Donald Trump and Republicans passed the largest cuts to health care in history, and industry earnings calls are exposing the scale of the fallout. Working families are paying the price as GOP cuts decimate plan choice, destroy competition, and drive health care costs higher.
Since Republicans slashed more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, over 8 million Americans have lost the coverage they relied on to see a doctor. Families are being forced to make impossible choices between paying for groceries or seeing a doctor. Hospitals are seeing a spike in uninsured patients, and insurers are being forced to pull out of markets altogether. It’s no surprise health care has become Americans’ top concern. A recent Gallup Poll showed that “the availability and affordability of health care” topped the chart of American worries about key issues, ranking higher than the economy and inflation. Nationwide, Americans are living with the consequences Republicans set in motion. Here is how Trump’s cuts are rippling through the industry and ripping care away from working Americans:
- Four million fewer Americans have ACA coverage after Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress ripped away the tax credits that made health care affordable for millions of small business owners, farmers, and older adults.
- The average American buying health care on their own is now paying $1,000 more before their insurer pays a single penny. Base premium rates are increasing by double digits for the second year in a row.
- Centene, the largest marketplace carrier, said its ACA membership is down two million from a year ago. Molina Healthcare reported its ACA membership is down nearly 60 percent from Q2 last year.
- Over 1.2 million Americans were left scrambling for health coverage last open enrollment period after nearly a dozen insurers pulled out of ACA marketplaces across the country in the wake of Republican chaos.
- Soon, over half a million Americans will face the same struggle after Cigna, Baylor Scott and White, PacificSource, and Providence Health Plan pull their plans from the marketplace at the end of the year. Molina Healthcare also recently announced it will be exiting eight states. KFF is currently tracking eight insurers pulling out of marketplaces across 20 states by the end of the year.
- Hospitals are reporting bigger financial impacts than anticipated due to Republicans ending the health care tax credits. HCA expected 85% of patients losing ACA coverage to become uninsured. Instead, “almost all of the individuals losing coverage on the exchanges are becoming uninsured,” said HCA CFO Mike Hazen. The anticipated decline in hospital utilization among those patients also “did not materialize” because people still need care and costs will likely be passed to hospitals and other patients.