Senate Republicans voted to pass their Big, Ugly Bill, bringing us one step closer to solidifying the largest cuts to health care in history. The bill will fund massive tax breaks for the wealthiest people and corporations by stripping 17 million Americans of their health care. Not only will this bill set back uninsured rates to a level not seen in 15 years, it will force hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes to shut down, causing layoffs and hurting local economies across the country. Children, seniors, people with disabilities and serious illnesses, and hardworking families are all at risk of losing access to lifesaving health care coverage.
Despite widespread opposition and polling that finds this bill overwhelmingly unpopular across party lines, Senate Republicans rammed it through anyway, increasing the cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to over $1 trillion. Coverage makes clear that Republicans are putting billionaires over hardworking families struggling to make ends meet. Now, House Republicans have one more chance to stand up for the hardworking Americans they represent, not billionaires, and reject this health care killer bill.
NPR: 5 Ways Trump’s Tax Bill Will Limit Health Care Access
- “The deepest cuts to health care spending come from a proposed Medicaid work requirement, which would cut off coverage for millions of enrollees who do not meet new employment or reporting standards… State experiments with work requirements have been plagued with administrative issues, such as eligible enrollees losing coverage over paperwork problems, and budget overruns.”
- “The GOP’s plan would curtail a practice, known as provider taxes, that nearly every state has used for decades to increase Medicaid payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other providers and to private managed-care companies… Rural hospitals typically operate on thin profit margins and rely on Medicaid tax payments to sustain them. Researchers from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research who examined the House bill concluded it would push more than 300 rural hospitals — many of them in Kentucky, Louisiana, California and Oklahoma — toward service reductions or closure.”
- “Those on Medicaid will pay more to see the doctor… The bill would require states that have expanded Medicaid to charge enrollees up to $35 for some services if their incomes are between the federal poverty level (this year, $15,650 for an individual) and 138% of that amount ($21,597). Medicaid enrollees often don’t pay anything when seeking medical services because studies have shown charging even small copayments prompts low-income people to forgo needed care.”
The New York Times: Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package
- “On average, that translates to about $560 in losses for someone who reports little to no income by 2034, and more than $118,000 in gains for someone making over $3 million, the report found… The disparity owes largely to the fact that Republicans aim to pay for their tax cuts by slashing programs for the poor, including Medicaid and food stamps. The cuts amount to one of the largest retrenchments in the federal safety net in a generation. But the savings they generate only offset a fraction of the total cost of the bill, which is expected to add more than $3 trillion to the federal debt by 2034.”
CNBC: Medicaid Cuts in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Will Leave Millions Uninsured, Threaten Rural Hospitals
- “Recent changes to the bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in health-care spending and result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance over the next decade, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”
- “Trump’s bill combined with separate policy changes could result in an estimated 17 million people losing health insurance, said Robin Rudowitz, director of the program on Medicaid and the uninsured at health policy research organization KFF. She said those other changes include new regulations that would dramatically limit access to Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage and expiring enhanced ACA tax credits.”
The Washington Post: At Least 17 Million Americans Would Lose Insurance Under Trump Plan
- “The Senate version of President Donald Trump’s massive tax and immigration spending plan would wipe out many of the strides made by the Affordable Care Act in reducing the number of uninsured Americans, resulting in at least 17 million Americans losing their health coverage, according to nonpartisan estimates and experts.”
- “[T]he Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate version of the bill would result in 11.8 million more uninsured in 2034, mostly because of Medicaid cuts, compared with 10.9 million if the House version became law.”
- “[B]oth versions of the bill would allow pandemic-era enhanced subsidies for health insurance through ACA marketplaces to expire at the end of the year, sharply raising out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans. The CBO estimates that 4.2 million people would lose insurance as a result. An additional 1 million are likely to become uninsured because of a combination of other Trump administration cuts and the Republican legislation, according to the CBO.”
- “The Republican bill, if enacted, would mark the biggest cut to Medicaid in the program’s nearly 60-year history and the biggest reduction in federal funding for the social safety net since at least the 1990s. The Senate version would cut $1.1 trillion of federal spending for Medicaid, Medicare and the ACA marketplaces, with Medicaid accounting for more than $1 trillion of the cuts.”
The Patriot-News: More Than 310K PA Residents Could Lose Medicaid Benefits Under GOP Tax Bill.
- “The bill would also impact residents who purchase health insurance through Pennie, the state’s health insurance marketplace. The legislation does not extend enhanced premium tax credits available to Pennsylvanians who purchase health insurance through Pennie. The Shapiro administration calculates that an additional 270,000 Pennsylvanians could lose coverage.”
- “Approximately three million Pennsylvanians receive healthcare coverage from Medicaid. The GOP bill is expected to increase Pennsylvania’s uninsured population by about 400,000 people, according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Pennsylvania Health Access Network. The legislation could leave healthcare providers facing an increase in unpaid services, with estimates as high as 750 million dollars.”
The Times Union: NY Hospitals, Health Experts Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Medicaid Impacts.
- “They include nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, the joint federal and state health insurance program, which New York health officials have warned will translate to billions of dollars in losses to state health care facilities, as well as having ripple effects for jobs in that industry.”
- “[U]p to 1.5 million New Yorkers are set to lose health insurance by 2027 under newly imposed restrictions on eligibility, including cutting off coverage entirely for roughly 225,000 non-U.S. citizens because of their immigration status. The state has estimated that 1.2 million residents will lose coverage under work requirements as well as a provision that would compel states to recertify that Medicaid recipients are eligible every six months. Critics have called that provision onerous and said it would cause more people to unknowingly fall off the Medicaid rolls. Hospitals and health care facilities in New York will experience an $8 billion cut, according to hospital leaders.”
