Congress’ Medicaid Cuts Projected to Cause More than 16,500 Adult Deaths Annually: New Harvard/CUNY/Public Citizen Study
Uninsured will increase by at least 7.6 million, more than 1.9 million likely to lose their doctor, and over 380,000 women likely to forego mammograms
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The massive Medicaid cuts called for in the Trump Budget Bill passed by the House on May 18 will increase the number of uninsured Americans by 7.6 million, causing an estimated 16,642 premature deaths among adults each year, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Other harms likely to arise from these cuts include:
- Over 1.9 million people will lose access to a physician
- Over 1.3 million people will forego needed medications
- Over 1.2 million people will be saddled with medical debt
- 246,000 will be turned away from medical care because of medical debts
- 380,000 women will miss recommended mammograms
The study, carried out by researchers at Harvard Medical School, the City University of New York’s Hunter College, and The Public Citizen Health Research Group, uses the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of insurance losses due to the Medicaid cuts. It then calculates the health harms of these insurance losses using findings from peer-reviewed analyses of the mortal (and other) effects of previous Medicaid reforms.
In addition to the overall effects of Medicaid provisions in the current House bill, the authors analyzed six individual Medicaid reform options, three found in the current bill (like work requirements) and three others that House Republicans have previously proposed and that could still be included in final legislation. The estimates do not include deaths and other harms that could result from the bill’s non-Medicaid provisions, such as reduced coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), massive cuts to food subsidies under the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and reduced nursing home staffing.
“The Medicaid cuts in the House Bill will strip healthcare from millions of Americans,” said Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study. “In the ICU, I see what happens when patients do not get the regular care they need: they get sicker, sometimes gravely or even mortally ill. If the Senate goes along with the House’s Medicaid cuts, hundreds of safety-net hospitals and clinics will be forced to close or limit their care, and medically-preventable deaths will soar,” he added.
Study co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a primary care doctor, distinguished professor of Public Health at CUNY’s Hunter College, and research associate at Public Citizen noted: “If they get their way, President Trump and Republicans in Congress will deprive millions of lower-income American of medical care in order to give trillions in tax windfalls to millionaires and billionaires.”
A supplementary resource with state-by-state figures is available to view here.
Adam Gaffney, David U. Himmelstein, and Steffie Woolhandler.“Projected Effects of Proposed Cuts in Federal Medicaid Expenditures on Medicaid Enrollment, Uninsurance, Healthcare and Health” Annals of Internal Medicine, June 16, 2025.
The study is available here.