Nearly 12 million people would lose health insurance under Senate GOP bill

The Senate Republicans’ version of President Trump’s tax bill would slash federal spending on health provisions—Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act—by $1.1 trillion by 2034. And in that time, an estimated 11.8 million people would lose their health insurance.

That’s according to an analysis released over the weekend by the Congressional Budget Office. The massive piece of legislation is likely to change as senators are currently running a “vote-a-rama” for rapid-fire amendment proposals.

The bulk of the estimated reductions in health spending come from Medicaid, which will lose more than $1 trillion. Of the 11.8 million people who could lose health insurance, 1.4 million are people without “verified citizenship” or “satisfactory immigration status,” the CBO noted.

The overall number of people estimated to lose health insurance is an increase over what was estimated from the House’s version of the bill, which was about 10.9 million.

The substantial cuts to Medicaid, a program jointly funded by states and the federal government, largely stem from two features in the bill, The New York Times notes. One is a strict nationwide work requirement, despite the fact that the vast majority of working-aged adults on Medicaid are already working. The new requirements are estimated to cut Medicaid spending by $325 billion over a decade, while a 2023 CBO analysis found that a strict work requirement would not increase employment.