House Republicans have released a long-awaited health care proposal that Democrats warn will strip millions of Americans of coverage, while funneling massive tax breaks to billionaires and corporate interests.
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the bill confirms months of warnings that the GOP and President Donald Trump are targeting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act despite claiming otherwise.
“Republicans finally released the bill they’ve been drafting behind closed doors for months to make catastrophic cuts to Americans’ health care, all so they can give tax breaks to billionaires and corporate interests,” Pallone emphasized. “Let’s be clear, Republican leadership released this bill under cover of night because they don’t want people to know their true intentions.”
The bill, a section of a larger budget reconciliation package Republicans aims to push through by Memorial Day, includes sweeping Medicaid changes. These include work requirements for some recipients, a freeze on state provider taxes, and eliminating a 5% federal funding boost many states have relied on since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, the legislation blocks federal funding for Medicaid recipients who cannot prove citizenship.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the legislation’s health care provisions would result in at least $715 billion in cuts, causing 8.6 million more people to lose insurance. The CBO also estimates that 5.1 million more Americans would go uninsured due to the GOP’s refusal to extend ACA tax credits and its pursuit of the so-called Marketplace Integrity Rule.
In total, CBO projects 13.7 million more Americans could become uninsured under Trump and Republican leadership.
“This is not trimming the fat from around the edges; it’s cutting to the bone,” Pallone said. “Nowhere in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ — they’re cutting people’s health care and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.”
Medicaid Slashes Could Hurt D.C. Residents, ‘Reverse Years of Progress‘
In the District of Columbia, where total Medicaid and CHIP enrollment was 260,218 as of June 2024, the stakes are high.
According to KFF, the federal government currently pays 78.2% of D.C.’s Medicaid costs. Since the end of the pandemic-era continuous enrollment provision in March 2023, more than 67,000 residents have already been disenrolled.
Medicaid and CHIP enrollment remains 7.7% higher than before the pandemic. Nearly half of all births in the District in 2022 were financed through Medicaid.
D.C. has taken steps to protect its residents, including adopting the Medicaid 12-month postpartum coverage extension and enacting paid family and sick leave laws. Yet 17,500 people in the District were uninsured in 2023—just 2.7% of the population, well below the national rate of 8.0%.
“This bill would reverse years of progress,” said Andrea Ducas, vice president of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress. “Rather than working to improve the Medicaid program, congressional Republicans are continuing a 15-year-old fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Each of their proposals would kick millions of the most vulnerable Americans off their health care, all to pay for tax giveaways for the president’s billionaire donors.”
