Executive Summary
*This article discusses the GOP reconciliation package, officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and its implications for Medicaid and health care access.
On May 22, the House passed a budget reconciliation bill, proposing to cut over $700 billion from Medicaid by terminating 14 million people from health coverage to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The bill is not about supporting those who depend on Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California), including children, pregnant people, older adults, and people with disabilities. Instead, the health care cuts would be used to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the most vulnerable. Here in California, cuts to Medi-Cal would result in a loss of $30 billion in federal Medicaid funding and potentially 3.4 million people losing Medi-Cal health care coverage, losing access to critical health services, and harming their health and wellbeing. Additional cuts to the Affordable Care Act would result in 4.2 million people losing coverage due to Congress’s failure to extend the enhanced premium tax credits, resulting in 600,000 individuals losing coverage through our exchange, Covered California.
This fact sheet covers the top 10 reasons why the reconciliation bill is bad for Medi-Cal.
