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Once Republicans in Congress get specific about Medicaid cuts, it will become more tangible and clearer who will be affected. Changes to the status quo in health care rarely get more popular when the details get filled in.
The budget resolution is unusual because it establishes different tracks for reconciliation in each chamber: House committees are instructed to increase deficits by $2.3 trillion, with major cuts to Medicaid; and Senate committees are instructed to increase deficits by what amounts to $5.8 trillion, without clear implications for Medicaid cuts.
The increase translates into an additional $35 billion to Medicare Advantage plans in 2026 compared to this year….The increase in payments is larger than for 2025 (3.7%) or 2024 (3.3%), but below the increase for 2023 (8.5%), and comes at a time of increasing scrutiny over Medicare Advantage payments.
While [the Title X family planning services] funding freeze could be the Trump administration’s first major salvo in its efforts to weaken and defund Planned Parenthood, more actions...to limit access to abortion and contraception are expected in the coming years.
… declining trust in the CDC and in the benefits of childhood vaccinations may complicate any efforts to address emerging public health challenges like the ongoing measles outbreak and the continued threat of bird flu
If the litigation brought by St. Luke’s is not successful, women in six states will continue to be unable to access abortion care in their states when they have a pregnancy-related emergency that puts their health at risk.
Eliminating [HIV prevention funding] could jeopardize recent successes in addressing the nation’s HIV epidemic, including those related to the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) Initiative, which the first Trump administration created
The CBO letter confirms early expectations, finding that over the next 10 years, 93% of non-Medicare spending in the E&C [House Energy & Commerce Committee] jurisdiction is from the federal share of Medicaid spending…Even if E&C eliminated all non-Medicaid and CHIP spending, the committee would need to cut federal spending on Medicaid and CHIP by well over $700 billion, nearly 10% of projected spending.
How these new workforce reductions at the Social Security Administration will affect people is unknown but could make it harder for people to get connected to benefits they might qualify for…which would in turn affect access to health insurance coverage through Medicare and Medicaid.
Given the current trends and embrace of vaccine skepticism on the part of the administration, and potential changes to federal policy around childhood vaccines, we might continue to witness more and longer outbreaks of preventable disease — and just maybe lose our measles elimination status, which as a country we’ve had for 25 years.
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