CBO: Over 500K Pennsylvanians will lose health care come December

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Over a half million Pennsylvanians will lose their health care coverage come December due to the Trump Administration‘s reconciliation bill, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports.  

CBO’s analyses indicate that health care cuts could cause up to 600,000 Pennsylvanians to be stripped of their Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, costing the commonwealth tens of billions of dollars.  

House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Phila.), recently joined House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee Chair Debbie Dingell (MI), House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-NY), and Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), to address Americans impacted by Congressional Republicans’ historic cuts to health care.  

Additional cuts are reportedly being considered by President Trump and House Republicans to pay for the war in Iran. “Stop Taking Our Health Care” was a month-long nationwide campaign to, as its site states, “fight back against Republican efforts to rip health coverage away from working families.”  

Cuts to Medicaid and elimination of enhanced health care tax credits have sent premiums soaring. A recent report by USA Today stated that 145,000 Pennsylvanians have dropped their health insurance as premiums skyrocket by as much as 485% in some communities.  

“No matter how you get your coverage, you’re paying the price for Trump’s health care cuts,” Boyle told Central Penn Business Journal. “Small businesses and working families alike will be forced to make up for Republicans’ trillion-dollar cuts through higher premiums and overburdened hospitals.”  

In a “Stop Taking Our Health Care” virtual call, Boyle answered the question of where America is now in the fight to save health care.   

“Thanks to reconciliation 1.0, which was passed last summer and signed most shamefully by our president on the Fourth of July, 15 million Americans are about to lose their health care coverage,” said Boyle.  

The reconciliation bill Boyle referenced is the Working Families Tax Cut Act, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Pennsylvania Republican Senator Dave McCormick told CPBJ the bill protects Medicaid for the people it was meant to help while putting it on a sustainable path forward.  

“An April 2024 GAO (Government Accountability Office) report estimated that the federal government loses between $233 billion to $521 billion every single year to fraud,” McCormick said. “The GAO also found that more than $31 billion in Medicaid payments were made improperly in 2024. That money should be going to patients, not fraudsters.  

“Even with reforms, Medicaid will still grow more than 2% annually in Pennsylvania. The program doesn’t shrink. It just grows in a way that ensures it can keep serving the people who need it most. I’m committed to improving the integrity of Pennsylvania’s healthcare system by rooting out the waste and abuse that threatens access to quality care.”  

McCormick noted that he also fought for the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion direct federal investment over five years into rural healthcare infrastructure, “the largest federal investment in rural healthcare in American history,” said McCormick. 

“Pennsylvania will receive hundreds of millions in new funding to hire more rural health workers, upgrade facilities, expand access to care, and develop new ways of delivering it,” added McCormick. 

Boyle emphasized that while the bill was passed last summer, health care cuts are scheduled to take effect this year. 

“That was done on purpose, because the Republicans who designed this bill at the direction of the president wanted to put some time and space between the bill passing and the devastation taking effect,” said Boyle. “They hoped they would escape the blame.  

“The bottom line is this: Millions and millions of people are about to lose their health care, all to subsidize tax breaks for billionaires. I want to say this to all those who may not be on Medicaid or may not be on the Affordable Care Act, who might get their health care from a private employer plan. You might think, ‘I feel bad for those on Medicaid or the ACA but it doesn’t impact me, I have private health insurance.’ 

“I have bad news for you. As study after study has shown, the health care costs of every single American family right now are going through the roof.  Because the reality is, you cannot take more than $900 billion in health care spending from the program and expect those costs not to be made up somewhere else. So, the cost of our care is being impacted as well as the quality.”  

Boyle noted that a second reconciliation bill is going through Congress now.  

“Does that have even one dime to go to health care? No. Does it have a dime to address any of the other rising costs facing the American people? No,” said Boyle.  

“But it does have $1 billion for Donald Trump’s ballroom after he said repeatedly no taxpayer money would be needed for such a vanity project. This White House and its enablers in Congress don’t give a damn about American families. They only care about ballrooms and tax breaks for billionaires.”