Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress released a new analysis on the increased number of avoidable deaths that could be the result of various congressional Republican proposals to cut the Medicaid program. The analysis finds that the proposal to lower the amount of funding that the federal government pays states for Medicaid expenses would lead to roughly 34,200 deaths each year if states respond by dropping their Medicaid expansions; and a separate proposal to impose onerous work reporting requirements would result in about 15,400 deaths each year. These estimates are not additive, each representing the projected impact of separate policy proposals if enacted individually.
The analysis, which includes estimates for the District of Columbia and 40 states that have expanded Medicaid, details the life-altering ramifications of these Medicaid cuts. The state-by-state fallout of cutting the federal government’s share of Medicaid expenses would be astronomical. For example, more than 2 million Californians and 1.3 million New Yorkers would become uninsured if Medicaid expansion were no longer tenable, leading to more than 6,500 and 4,100 deaths each year, respectively.
The new CAP column precedes a critical May 7 U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of legislation detailing how congressional Republicans choose to proceed on cutting Medicaid in order to meet the committee’s requisite $880 billion spending cut target.
“Congressional Republicans’ proposals to slash Medicaid funding have life and death consequences,” said Andrea Ducas, vice president of Health Policy at CAP and co-author of the column. “The unnecessary loss of life that would result from these plans would affect people across all communities, with the lowest-income Americans being hardest hit. Taking health care away from Americans while giving the top 1 percent more than $1 trillion in tax cuts is a betrayal of America’s working class and should outrage all Americans.”
Read the column: “Congressional Republicans’ Proposals To Slash Medicaid Could Cost Tens of Thousands of Lives” by Natasha Murphy and Andrea Ducas.
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