That’s thanks to a faster phase-in of requirements that able-bodied adults on Medicaid work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month.
Now, the Medicaid work requirements will likely take effect in late 2026 or early 2027, instead of 2029.
These added administrative burdens will certainly lead to more Americans losing Medicaid coverage despite being both poor and working, and thus eligible.
Additional Medicaid cuts in the bill will slash supplemental funds going to hospitals and rural health care providers, and force Medicaid recipients to pay more health care costs out-of-pocket.
Trending Stories Democrats estimate that Trump and Republicans’ health care policies will amount to nearly 14 million Americans losing their health insurance.
Republican lawmakers are finalizing President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to cut taxes for the wealthy and destroy America’s already weak safety net for the poor. They are also trying to make sure the health care cuts are politically damaging and destructive enough.
The agreement states that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La. Trump’s tax bill will begin kicking people off Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans, sooner than it did in its previous iteration, according to a decision made by GOP leaders on Sunday night to please conservative lawmakers. This is a result of a quicker implementation of the requirement that Medicaid-eligible able-bodied adults work or volunteer for at least 80 hours per month.
Rep. says, “It’s pretty obvious that the goal here is to make an ugly bill — the ‘big, beautiful’ bill with so many ugly details — even uglier and to speed up the rate at which this ugliness occurs.”. Lloyd Doggett (Texas, D). The goal of the work requirements, he claims, is “creating more bureaucracy, more red tape, more excuses to deny people coverage.”. “”.
Even if it is “defensible policy-wise, [it] is the height of stupidity from a political perspective,” it is an attack on our own voters, according to a longtime Trumpworld adviser, who also says that targeting Medicaid fraud is politically popular and worthwhile. “.”.
Although the White House has openly endorsed the inclusion of work requirements in Medicaid, some Republicans within the Trump administration are concerned about the consequences of the House GOP’s proposed changes. The administration is growing increasingly concerned about the possibility of political backlash, including from some members of Trump’s base, if the final “big, beautiful” bill includes too steep cuts to Medicaid benefits and services, according to several people close to the administration.
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Some members of the MAGA elite think that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are purposefully steering the party in a politically “suicidal” direction, to use the phrase employed so frequently by these professional Trumpists, including Sen. R-Mo’s Josh Hawley. ). Trump frequently claims he will protect Medicaid, but these individuals are unsure if he will intervene to try to stop the cuts.
It’s unclear yet whether conservative lawmakers were successful in cutting federal funding for states’ Medicaid expansion populations because the specifics of the changes they negotiated have not been made public.
However, the new work requirements will now go into effect sooner, possibly as soon as a few weeks or months after the midterm elections. According to experts, the goal of these work requirements is to force coverage losses rather than to encourage people to enter the labor market, as the majority of Medicaid recipients are already employed.
Larry Levitt, executive vice president at the health policy research group KFF, says, “This is framed as a work requirement, but it’s really rationing health insurance coverage by complexity.”. People find it difficult to obtain health coverage because of the administrative obstacles that are put in place. “.”.
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“The goal of this bill is to overwhelm Americans with paperwork so that it is more difficult for them to obtain and maintain coverage,” Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, tells Rolling Stone, adding that “the savings are gained from people falling off coverage.”. “”.
According to Levitt, this bill “is a solution in search of a problem,” since the majority of Medicaid-eligible able-bodied adults already work. “”.
Medicaid recipients must typically earn extremely low incomes to qualify for the program due to stringent income caps that vary by state. Each year, states must verify the income of recipients, which consistently leads to the loss of coverage for many beneficiaries who are still technically eligible for the program for administrative reasons, like not answering a call or letter.
According to the bill, those income eligibility checks and attempts to confirm adherence to work requirements will take place at least twice a year. More Americans will undoubtedly lose Medicaid coverage as a result of these additional administrative burdens, even though they are eligible because they are both working and impoverished.
According to Wright, “the bureaucratic barrier is the point in this bureaucracy.”.
Another issue is that a large number of Medicaid recipients are unable to work but have not yet received approval for disability, which is a difficult process. As a result, those people will no longer be covered.
The bill’s additional Medicaid cuts will reduce supplemental funding for rural health care providers and hospitals, driving up out-of-pocket medical expenses for Medicaid beneficiaries.
According to Levitt and Wright, there will be no individual health insurance plans available on the marketplace for Americans who lose their Medicaid benefits as a result of the work requirements.
It is anticipated that an additional four million Americans will lose their insurance coverage as a result of Republicans’ plans to permit expanded subsidies for individuals on individual health insurance plans to expire in addition to the Medicaid changes.
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Democrats predict that almost 14 million Americans will lose their health insurance as a result of Trump and Republicans’ health care policies. The uninsured rate would rise by about 50% as a result, and more Americans would be uninsured than at any other point since the Affordable Care Act, the Democratic Party’s signature health care law, went into effect.
“The biggest rollback in federal support for health care ever, and the biggest jump by far in the number of people uninsured,” according to Levitt, is what Republicans are proposing in their set of policies. “.”.
