Proposed Medicaid cuts could lead to thousands of deaths, study finds

Proposed Medicaid cuts in the House Republicans’ sprawling domestic policy bill could cause an estimated 7.6 million Americans to lose health insurance.

The proposed Medicaid cuts in the House Republicans’ sprawling domestic policy bill could cause an estimated 7.6 million Americans to lose health insurance, leading to thousands of preventable deaths, according to an analysis published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The study estimated the cuts could cause nearly 2 million people to lose their primary doctor, 1.3 million people to not fill medications they need and 380,270 women to skip a mammogram. More than 16,600 people could die as a result of losing access to or forgoing care, the researchers estimated.

“Patients who go without care because they cannot afford it often get sicker and sicker, until they end up with chronic illness,” said lead study author Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

The reconciliation bill, which passed the House in late May and is working its way through the Senate, proposes deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending — at least $625 billion over 10 years, according to the study.

“Parts of the bill that seem innocuous, that seem like they may be aimed at cutting fraud and abuse, will disenroll people who should be on Medicaid under the stated criteria,” said Dr. Rachel Werner, executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the analysis. “It’s not just about saving dollars and cents, it’s costing lives.”