Millions of Medicaid Recipients at Risk of Losing Health Care Coverage

By Consumers for Quality Care, on December 17, 2024

Should Congress cut federal funding to Medicaid, more than 3 million people across nine states could lose access to critical health care, according to KFF Health News.

Nine states – Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia – have laws that would end their Medicaid expansions if federal funding drops. According to KFF and Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, between 3.1 and 3.7 million consumers would lose Medicaid coverage instantly if federal funding is cut.

To incentivize states to expand Medicaid, the federal government pays 90 percent of the costs to cover these consumers. In exchange, consumers that make up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level gain access to Medicaid coverage. To date, 40 states have expanded Medicaid for their residents.

Beyond the nine states that would immediately end Medicaid expansion if federal funding is cut, more states would be forced to make tough choices, as they would have to pay the difference out of their state budget. This may raise the rate of uninsured consumers and lead to worsening health care outcomes, according to Robin Rudowitz, Vice President and Director of the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at KFF. “With a reduction in the expansion match rate, it is likely that all states would need to evaluate whether to continue expansion coverage because it would require a significant increase in state spending. If states drop coverage, it is likely that there would be an increase in the number of uninsured, and that would limit access to care across red and blue states that have adopted expansion,” said Rudowitz.

CQC urges lawmakers to preserve Medicaid funding to ensure our country’s most vulnerable populations have access to quality health care.