Report Estimates Medicaid Cuts to Cause 51,000 Excess Deaths Annually as Budget Bill Faces Pushback
A Yale study estimates that 51,000 excess deaths could result from the GOP’s Medicaid Cuts as the Republican budget bill faces backlash from across the political spectrum in the House and Senate.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House-passed budget reconciliation bill which aims to cut Medicaid funding by nearly $700 billion over the next decade could result in more than 51,000 preventable deaths each year, according to a new study from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The mortality analysis was conducted in response to an inquiry from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and projects tens of thousands of excess deaths annually as a result of proposed changes to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and federal nursing home regulations. The analysis was released as the spending package faces pushback from across the political spectrum, with many hoping the pushback results in less drastic cuts to social services, while others insist that more cuts must be made.
“This is not just bad public policy. It is not just immoral. It is a death sentence for struggling Americans,” Sanders said. “If this bill becomes law, more than 51,000 Americans will die unnecessarily each and every year.”
The researchers broke down the estimated annual death toll as follows:
11,300 deaths would result from 7.7 million people losing Medicaid or ACA marketplace coverage
18,200 deaths would result from 1.38 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries losing Medicaid-funded drug subsidies
13,000 deaths would result from eliminating the federal minimum staffing requirement in nursing homes
8,811 deaths would result from allowing ACA premium tax credits to expire, leading to 5 million more uninsured Americans
“Altogether, we project that these changes will result in over 51,000 preventable deaths,” wrote lead author Dr. Rachel Werner of the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist Dr. Alison Galvani.
As the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sanders has been outspoken in his opposition to the legislation.
“In the wealthiest country in the world, we should be guaranteeing health care to all as a human right. Not taking health care away from millions of seniors and working families to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” Sanders said. He added that the findings should come as a wake-up call for lawmakers as the Senate continues considering the legislation.
“When you throw 13.7 million Americans off the health care they have, increase the cost of prescription drugs for low-income seniors, and make nursing homes less safe, not only will some of the most vulnerable people in our country suffer — tens of thousands will die,” Sanders said. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
These estimates come as the bill faces some roadblocks to being passed in the Senate weeks after it was passed in the House during a late-night session on May 22. Those roadblocks range from the entirety of the Democratic Party to moderate Republicans in swing districts who are worried about the impact of Medicaid cuts on their re-election efforts and more extreme Republicans who want to see the bill make larger cuts to social services in an attempt to avoid deficit increases that will result from the bill.
Even one of President Trump’s closest allies, Elon Musk, came out against the bill days after finishing his term as a Special Government Employee overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has taken a sledgehammer to federal agencies like USAID, CFPB and the Department of Education. Musk has posted negative comments about the bill on his social media site X dozens of times since ending his term, criticizing it for being a massive spending bill that increases the national debt.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” Musk said in one post. Another post said, “A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by [$5 trillion].”
After Trump responded that he was “surprised” and “disappointed” by Musk’s comments, he said that Musk’s newfound opposition resulted from the decision to remove the electric vehicle mandate from the budget bill. When Elon shot back, saying that he opposed the bill because of deficit increases that would result from it, Trump threatened to revoke all of the government contracts to Elon’s companies, which are worth several billion dollars, and pocket Musk an estimated $8 million per day in taxpayer money.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump posed on Truth Social.
In a post on X that has since been deleted, Musk responded to Trump’s threat by accusing him of not releasing the Epstein files, which he promised to do on the campaign trail because he would be implicated in them.
This accusation is backed up by a treasure trove of evidence proving Trump’s chummy relationship with the serial human trafficker with connections to U.S. and Israeli intelligence. The two can be seen partying it up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in the 1990s.
Musk added in another now-deleted post that SpaceX would be “decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately” due to Trump’s threat to revoke his subsidies. This would essentially halt American spaceflight since the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is the primary vehicle used to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) from U.S. soil. However, as of now, the dueling mob bosses remain at a standstill, as Elon’s contracts remain untouched, and SpaceX has not announced plans to decommission its spacecraft.
Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has opposed the bill for similar reasons to Musk. During a recent Newsmax interview, Paul said that he supported the extension of tax cuts included in the bill but that there weren’t enough spending cuts, and the bill would cause the deficit to increase by trillions of dollars.
“If [extending tax cuts] was all that the bill was I’d be a hell yes,” Paul said. “But I would still support the tax cuts and some spending cuts if they weren’t forcing conservatives to vote to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.” He added, “This would be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever.”
Ironically, neither Paul nor Musk acknowledges that the trillion-dollar tax cuts and hundred billion-dollar increases to the military budget included in the bill are the main drivers of deficit increases they’re concerned about. A report from the Quincy Institute published in January found that increasing defense spending without raising taxes or making even more drastic cuts to social services to pay for it would cause the national debt to skyrocket. “Combined, increasing defense spending to 5 percent of GDP and implementing a major tax cut could more than triple the size of the [national debt] compared to currently projected levels,” the report stated.
While Paul has voiced concerns about insufficient spending cuts and deficit increases in the bill, his Republican colleague Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is concerned that the cuts to Medicaid are too drastic and risk alienating working-class voters. In a New York Times op-ed in May, Hawley criticized “corporatist Republicans” for crafting a budget bill that includes “corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance.” He added, “This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
Hawley recently told Real Clear Politics that he had a phone call with President Trump about the risks of cutting social safety net programs like Medicaid. He said that the President told him, “People who cut Medicaid and Medicare lose elections.” However, even though the White House has claimed that nobody would lose coverage as a result of the bill, it doesn’t appear as if the President is taking his own advice as his budget cuts Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars and would throw an estimated 11 million people off their health insurance according to the CBO.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), who joined Democrats in voting against the bill when it originally passed in the House, has also pointed out a significant policy concern included in the bill, which would prohibit all state or local governments from passing laws to regulate artificial intelligence for the next ten years.
The provision of the bill states, “no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce, during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any law or regulation of that State or a political subdivision thereof limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.”
Several House Republicans who voted in favor of the bill when it passed in their chamber of Congress during a late-night session on May 22 have now said that they wouldn’t have supported the bill if they had known that provision was included.
Republican Representative Majorie Taylor Green (R-GA), who is usually a loyal Trump supporter, posted on X after finding out about the provision, saying, “Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years…I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”
Aside from the fact that Green has admitted to voting to approve a bill that she had no idea what was in, her newfound opposition to the measure means that unless enough Senators manage to work together to remove the provision before it is sent back to the House to pass again before it’s sent to the President for final approval, it will face additional opposition to passage.
Trump has said that he wants to sign the bill into law by July 4 to coalign with Independence Day, which gives Republicans in Congress several weeks to play legislative football, tossing the bill between committees until someone is either brave enough to pick apart the policies they don’t want to include in the legislation, potentially drawing the ire of the King President, or they cave to his demands.
With Republicans holding a 53 to 47 majority over Democrats in the Senate, losing four or more Republican votes would reduce their count below the 50-vote threshold required for passage under budget reconciliation rules, assuming all Democrats and independents oppose the bill. Currently, at least eight Republican Senators have voiced concerns with the bill. This includes Senators Rand Paul and Ron Joshson (R-WI), who are concerned about deficit increases, and Senators Josh Hawley, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), and Jim Justice (R-WV), who are concerned about Medicaid cuts and their impact on local hospitals. As a result, this means that it’s almost certain that the bill will undergo at least some changes before it’s sent back to the House, where Republicans hold an even slimmer majority.
Republicans currently hold 220 House seats while Democrats hold 212, and there are three vacant seats that were held by Democrats until they died of old age in office over the course of three consecutive weeks in March. If those seats were filled by Democrats as they were supposed to have been, it would have meant that Republicans could only lose two votes before falling below the 218 votes required to pass any party-line measure. However, when House Republicans managed to pass the bill on May 22 the margin was just 215-214. Republicans were able to pass the bill out of the chamber with less than 218 votes because three Democratic vacancies and two Republican absences lowered the number required to reach a majority of the votes cast.
When House Republicans passed the bill by a one vote margin they had just two members vote against it and one member vote present. Now, as Rep. Green’s former yes vote has turned into a no vote unless the provision banning the regulation of AI is removed, the House could lack the support required to pass the legislation again since the margin would change to 214-215.
For that to happen, Reps. Massie and Warren Davidson (R-OH) would need to remain as no votes, and Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) would need to keep his present vote — or switch it to a no vote — which would still leave the bill defeated with a margin of 214-216.