Medicaid Impact Counter

Mortality estimates:

72 million people have Medicaid coverage in the United States [1]. We looked at how many people would lose their Medicaid coverage because of proposed cuts in the 40 states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA and in Washington, D.C. To see how these cuts might affect deaths, we used a recent study that found a decrease in deaths by 11.8 per 100,000 people each year- at a state level- due to the ACA Medicaid expansion[2]. We then multiplied this number by how many people live in the states that would be affected. In one year, around 15.5 million people might lose their Medicaid coverage[3]. We estimate that this reduction could lead to about 28,785 (95% CI: 5,367, 51,959) extra deaths in those states.

Importantly- while these impacts are jarring- they are only the short-term impacts. The long-term impact associated with avoiding necessary medical care are significantly greater [4].

Catastrophic healthcare expenditure estimates:

We looked at how the suggested cuts could affect serious healthcare costs (often call "catastrophic healthcare expenditure"), which means spending more than 30% of a family's income on healthcare in a year [5]. Research shows that people with Medicaid spend about 4.48 percentage points less on these serious costs compared to those without Medicaid [5]. We then calculated, for each state, how many people might be impacted by the cuts and how much they could spend based on whether they have Medicaid or not.

In each state, between 19-49% of people on Medicaid might lose their healthcare coverage [3]. Over one year, we think around 746,000 (95% CI 107,000-1.28 million) more people could face serious healthcare costs because of these Medicaid cuts.

Estimation review:

All estimates have calculated and reviewed by Brooke Nichols (BU), Jacob Bor (BU), Nahid Bhadelia (BU), Jennifer Dodge (USC) and Brian Lee (USC). Have data or suggestions to improve the analysis? Please contact us!

Methodology

Mortality estimates:

Catastrophic healthcare expenditure estimates:

Estimation review:

References: