The issues are too numerous to list especially concerning rural hospitals. But the affect on children and families is of a huge magnitude. The CBO is non-partisan and gives generally good information. This is what they have said.
- Pregnancy and postpartum coverage: Medicaid pays for more than 40% of U.S. births.
- Newborn Babies. When their births are financed by Medicaid, newborns have automatic and continuous coverage for one year. For the 12% of births covered by Medicaid that are preterm, Medicaid pays for life-saving services from a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). For all eligible babies, pediatric primary care and other needed services are covered.
- Young Children. Medicaid, along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), covers more than 40% of the nation’s young children under age 6, including three quarters of young, low-income children (those in families below 200% of the federal poverty level). Under Medicaid’s child health benefit, EPSDT, these children and others gain access to well-child visits, acute care, and interventions to prevent disabilities.
- Parents and caregivers, including child care providers. By raising income eligibility to cover low-income adults under Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion allowed more adults to have health coverage for the first time. This extended Medicaid to many low-income parents and others who care for their children. In 2023, nearly 30% of child care workers were covered by Medicaid—a critical support for working parents and the small businesses that employ them
To fund larger tax cuts, the bill avoided extending current subsidies that help make ACA marketplace insurance plans affordable. Those subsidies will expire at the end of 2025, leading to premiums that double for many people, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cause more than 4 million more people to become uninsured. Along with the Medicaid cuts, and other provisions making it harder for people to enroll in ACA plans even when eligible, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total number of uninsured will rise by 17 million people by 2034.
Research shows that Medicaid coverage of pregnant mothers and young children has a long lasting,
lifelong positive impact on health, education, and earnings outcomes. So Medicaid cuts, as the saying goes, are “penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
It is hard to overstate the critical role Medicaid plays for mothers and young children, covering essential services and supports and boosting
family economic security. CCF
fact sheets detail the ways Medicaid supports
women,
moms and newborns and
young children.
Research indicates that paperwork requirements such as those in the bill—particularly for Medicaid—don’t increase employment rates and often increase overhead costs. A
group of researchers evaluated the first year of paperwork reporting requirements in Arkansas and found that there was a significant loss of Medicaid coverage in the initial six months among eligible people and no significant change in employment. Georgia also implemented a trial program, called Pathways, that included paperwork requirements, and state caseworkers found the monthly verification of employment overly burdensome. To date, taxpayers have spent more than
$86 million on Pathways only to have 6,500 participants enrolled in the first 18 months of the program—75 percent fewer enrollees than the state had estimated would participate in year one.
In a nutshell this is going to be catastrophic and it will affect every one of us eventually as hospitals close and insurance costs increase.
