While anti-trans and anti-DEI legislation is making it harder for a wide range of Americans to access healthcare, new survey findings show that LGBTQI+ people are at greater risk of losing access to healthcare under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
HALEY NORRIS; contact page here
Norris is a policy analyst for the LGBTQI+ Policy team at the Center for American Progress (CAP).
Norris told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “What is top of mind for everyone right now is the massive defunding of the healthcare infrastructure because of this bill. The numbers that they are cutting are truly outrageous and should make everyone worried about the stability of our healthcare system moving forward. In the last year, 100 million people were covered by Medicaid or CHIP. Based on the estimates that the Congressional Budget Office and analysis that CAP has done, at least 10.5 million people will now be kicked off.
“One thing that is being lost in the coverage right now is that the Medicaid cuts are outrageous and will absolutely harm people’s lives, but we are also about to see a huge shift in how effective Affordable Care Act marketplace insurance can be. A lot of these changes are procedural-looking and boring, so people may not latch onto them––but this bill reduces the length of time for open enrollment periods and imposes penalties for folks who get their Medicaid rejected via new work requirements. Those people are made ineligible for ACA subsidies. The bill also did not extend the ACA subsidies, so monthly premiums for marketplace insurance are going to skyrocket. Meanwhile, undocumented folks are being fully cut off from insurance right now unless it’s through a private insurer.
“When you put a strain on all of these different facets of insurance, it doesn’t just impact people with Medicaid or marketplace insurance. It puts a strain on providers and then puts a strain on hospitals. Our healthcare team has highlighted that 300 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closing. If you average it out per hospital per year, the Act puts in a measly $4.5 million a year over the next five years. But these budget cuts are projected out for a 10-year window, so they are only offering relief for half of that time. We don’t know what steps will be taken past those five years to help those providers stay open. These [rural] people are already living in healthcare deserts; if we lose more hospitals, the suffering will be even greater.
“Queer and trans folks are on Medicaid at a higher rate than the whole group of LGBTQI+ people and non-LGBTQI+ people. Within the ACA marketplace insurance, LGBTQI+ people are insured at the same rate as non-LGBTQI+ people. We need to put these numbers out there to highlight the disparate impact these cuts have on different groups, and to make the point that the communities being scapegoated are either paying into the system or making use of the system. These are people being cut off from healthcare in ways that are going to harm them more than we realize.
“Queer and trans folks also make significantly less money than non-LGBTQI+ folks, so when we think about marketplace insurance premiums going up, or people being kicked off of Medicaid and having to switch to another form of insurance, more people are going to end up uninsured or underinsured and will skip going to the doctor’s office. Long term, this is going to cause a lot of strain for our healthcare system down the line as people no longer have access to preventative care or necessary care when they’re sick.”