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Sick Of It! Fix Health Care Now: Reversing The Trump-GOP Medicaid Cuts

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September 10, 2026
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This month, Protect Our Care is highlighting the first of our policy proposals to fix health care now: reversing the Trump-GOP Medicaid cuts. Last year, Donald Trump and Republicans cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to fund tax breaks for billionaires, plunging our nation into a spiraling health care crisis. Despite overwhelming opposition from across the political spectrum, including voters who said backing Medicaid cuts was a “dealbreaker” for their vote, Republicans went ahead anyway. 

Before these cuts, Medicaid provided coverage for over 70 million people. Now, people are losing access to lifesaving treatment, hospitals and clinics are shutting down, and costs are skyrocketing. As it stands, almost 5 million have lost Medicaid/CHIP coverage, and the losses will continue to grow as Republicans’ health care crisis grows worse. Americans across the country are feeling the consequences of Republicans’ choice to put billionaires ahead of their health care. We can only fix this crisis by expanding access to affordable health care coverage, starting with reversing Trump and Republicans’ massive cuts to Medicaid.

Learn more about Protect Our Care’s “Sick of It! Fix Health Care Now” campaign, calling on lawmakers to take immediate action on commonsense solutions that Americans are asking for, here.

BY THE NUMBERS

  • As many as 10 million people could lose Medicaid coverage by 2028 thanks to the Trump-GOP cuts.
  • Nearly 5 million have already lost the Medicaid or CHIP coverage they relied on after Republicans gutted nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid.
  • Medicaid provided coverage and lifesaving care to over than 70 million Americans before the Trump-GOP cuts, including:

The Trump-GOP Medicaid Cuts Are Ripping Away Health Care Coverage From Millions

Millions Have Already Lost  Medicaid In the Wake of GOP Cuts And This is Just the Beginning. Nearly 5 million have already lost their Medicaid or CHIP coverage after Republicans gutted nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid. Families are already paying the price after GOP cuts forced states to cut eligibility and overturned rules designed to mitigate coverage loss from the unwinding of pandemic-era policies.

GOP Red Tape Will Kick Millions More Off Medicaid. The GOP’s deepest cuts to Medicaid funding, cruel work requirements, could rip health care away from as many as 10 million people by 2028, including people with cancer, diabetes, and HIV. The vast majority of people on Medicaid who can work already do. Work requirements do not boost employment and have been a disaster in every state that has implemented them, leading to states spending more on administrative costs than on health care, thousands unnecessarily losing their coverage, and consulting firms pocketing the cash. Moreover, millions who become uninsured may incur as much as $22,800 in new medical debt annually.

GOP Cuts Will Force Low-Income Americans to Pay More for Their Care. Thanks to the Trump-GOP cuts, 20 million people on Medicaid will be forced to pay a sick tax to see specialists for conditions such as diabetes or arthritis starting in 2028. Families making as little as $33,000 a year will be forced to pay up to $1,650 in increased out-of-pocket costs while billionaires rake in tax breaks. Some states have already started implementing these costs early. Montana and New Hampshire have taken steps to start charging their Medicaid enrollees premiums, which research suggests adds to state administrative burdens and may not offset the costs. When Arkansas introduced Medicaid cost sharing, it increased spending by $30 per enrollee per month. 

The Trump-GOP Medicaid Cuts Are Putting Over 1,200 Health Care Facilities and Counting On the Chopping Block

Hospitals and Clinics Are on the GOP Chopping Block. The American health care system is on life support after Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans decimated over half a trillion in critical hospital funding through their Medicaid cuts. Now, 92 percent of hospital leaders say Medicaid cuts are having a significant financial impact. Over 1,200 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have shut down, cut services, or are at risk of doing so after GOP policies gutted Medicaid — forcing Americans to travel further for maternity care and emergency rooms, face longer wait times, and pay more for their care. Due to GOP cuts, states are being cornered into reducing provider payments, making it more likely that health care facilities that provide a lifeline to communities will be forced to shutter, cut services, or stop accepting Medicaid. 

No State Is Safe From the Economic Fallout of GOP Medicaid Cuts. GOP Medicaid cuts are estimated to shrink state budgets by $664 billion over the next decade. Meanwhile, the cost of health care continues to rise unchecked under the Trump administration, state tax collections are lagging, and millions of Americans will still need health care. Since Medicaid usually accounts for nearly a third of states’ annual budgets, cuts to Medicaid will have widespread effects on state resources available to fund any number of critical services from health care to housing to education.

  • GOP Medicaid Cuts Are Burdening Americans with New State and Local Taxes. Communities are so desperate to save their local hospitals in the wake of the big, ugly bill that counties from California to Minnesota to Alabama are instituting higher property taxes to fund infusions to stop their hospitals from closing. Once millions begin to lose their health care due to paperwork designed to rip away their coverage and deep cuts to provider taxes and state-directed payments take effect in 2027 and 2028, the crisis will only worsen, leaving millions of Americans picking up the tab for federal cuts.

The Worst of Medicaid Cuts Is Yet to Come. The GOP health care crisis is just beginning. Republicans knew cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid to give tax breaks to the wealthy and powerful would be hugely unpopular, so they delayed some of the deepest cuts to Medicaid so that some of the biggest damage would hit communities after the 2026 midterm elections. Though communities across America are already feeling the pain through losses in coverage, closures of hospitals, and cuts to care, the situation will only get worse in 2027 and 2028 when work requirements, cuts to provider taxes, and cuts to state-directed payments kick in. When those cuts begin to hit state budgets, no one will be spared. Worse still, Trump’s proposed regulations may triple the size of specific Medicaid cuts, cutting as much as an additional $365 billion from Medicaid.

Meet the Americans Losing Medicaid Thanks to the GOP’s Health Care Cuts

In Maryland, Kristine Fifer — a caregiver for her son Eddie — is facing a grim future in the wake of the Trump-GOP Medicaid cuts: “‘With these new cuts, I’m done. I’m going to foreclose,’ Fifer said, fighting back tears. ‘It’s either I ride it out until the very last day until they kick us out of our home, or I put him in an institution.’”

In New York, Jodie Geiger’s closest dialysis is closing after Trump and Republicans cut Medicaid. The closest clinic accepting new patients is about a 30-minute drive away. “‘It’s been a very hard thing to come to,’ said Jodie Geiger. ‘I do think it’s very unfair because this is something we need to survive. This isn’t a cut finger and a band aid, this is our life on the line,’ Geiger said.”

In Nebraska, Anna Keyzer uses Medicaid to afford care for her son, Simon, who is blind, tube-fed and prone to self-harming behaviors. Anna said changes to Medicaid proposed late last year in her state would have forced her family into ‘unthinkable’ choices: “I can’t just let Simon die, and so then I was like, ‘We’re gonna have to sell our house,’’ Keyzer said. ‘I don’t know what we would do.’”

In Nebraska, Malissie Plugge lost her children’s day care facility after the provider was forced to take on additional home health care responsibilities as a result of Medicaid cuts. She found a new day care, but it will cost $500 more every month. She said: “We don’t eat out and we don’t do a lot of shopping and all of those things, so it’s like, what’s left to cut?”

In New York, Alyson Chadwick is staring down the prospect that her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease and is living in an assisted living facility, will have to pay more due to Medicaid cuts: “I am worried they will lose funding from Medicaid and our bill will go up.”

In Colorado, Jo Remund, who helps care for two autistic children, could lose thousands of dollars a month due to Medicaid cuts, “which is literally the difference of being able to pay rent, being able to provide food, being able to support them in any of the outside needs that they need.”

In Colorado, Briana Hayes is worried that she will have to get a job in addition to her caregiving responsibilities as a result of Medicaid cuts. She said the monthly cost for Medicaid would jump to $11,500 from the current $8,000.

In Idaho, Lacey Protopoppus, a mother of two kids who rely on Medicaid, is worried that cuts will impact her children’s care: “‘[My son has] made incredible growth in the year and a half that he’s been on services. His growth is going to stagnate, it’s gonna slow down,’ Protopoppus said. ‘It’s not going to be at the same rapid growth that it’s been at, which will put him at a higher risk of needing services when he’s an adult.’” Her family has already been impacted by cuts. An earlier 4% cut moved her son’s services “from local, very close to us, to a little bit further away, and shifted how many hours he’s getting…He’s getting less of his services available because we don’t have the time to go from one service to the next.”

Click here for hundreds more stories of Americans paying the price for GOP Medicaid Cuts.