Senate Republicans have passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” a move that will make major changes to Medicaid through establishing a work requirement for the first time and restricting states’ ability to finance their share of the program’s costs. If the bill ultimately becomes law after passing the House and receiving Trump’s signature — which could all happen before Friday — American health care is never going to be the same.
The consequences will be dire.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation would slash Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion and that nearly 12 million people would lose their health insurance. Republicans added a last-minute infusion of funding for rural hospitals to assuage moderates skittish about the Medicaid cuts, but hospitals say the legislation will still be devastating to their business and their patients.
The Logoff
The email you need to stay informed about Trump — without letting the news take over your life.
When combined with the expiration of Obamacare subsidies at the end of this year, which were not addressed in the budget bill, and the other regulatory changes being made by the Trump administration, the Republican policy agenda could lead to an estimated 17 million Americans losing health coverage over the next decade, according to the health policy think tank KFF.
Fewer people with health insurance is going to mean fewer people getting medical services, which means more illness and ultimately more deaths.
One recent analysis by a group of Harvard-affiliated researchers of the House Republicans’ version of the budget bill (which included the same general outline, though some of the provisions have been tweaked in the Senate) concluded that 700,000 fewer Americans would have a regular place to get medical care as a result of the bill. Upward of 200,000 fewer people would get their blood cholesterol or blood sugar checked; 139,000 fewer women would get their recommended mammograms. Overall, the authors project that between 8,200 and 24,600 additional Americans would die every year under the Republican plan. Other analyses came to the same conclusion: Millions of Americans will lose health insurance and thousands will die.
After a painful legislative debate in which some of their own members warned them not to cut Medicaid too deeply, Republicans succeeded in taking a big chunk out of the program to help cover the costs of their bill’s tax cuts. They have, eight years after failing to repeal Obamacare entirely, managed to strike blows to some of its important provisions.
So, for better or worse, they own the health care system now, a system that is a continued source of frustration for most Americans — frustrations that the Republican plan won’t relieve. The next time health care comes up for serious debate in Congress, lawmakers will need to repair the damage that the GOP is doing with its so-called big, beautiful bill.
How the Republican budget bill will drive up health care costs for everyone
The effects of the budget bill won’t be limited only to the people on Medicaid and the people whose private insurance costs will increase because of the Obamacare funding cuts.