Ever since the MAGA Murder Bill (officially H.R. 1, the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act") was passed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate & House and signed into law by Donald Trump a few days ago, I've seen a growing conventional wisdom taking hold on social media: People keep claiming that either all, "nearly all"or at least "most of" the budget cuts & other gutting of various programs and departments won't actually kick in until after the November 2026 midterms.
Now, don't get me wrong--most of those making these claims are well-intentioned; they're saying this cynically, to underscore how disingenuous Congressional Republicans are by back-loading the pain until the midterms are safely in their rearview mirrors. And, to be fair, much of the damage won't being until well after next November.
Over at The New Republic, Greg Sargent has taken this thinking one step further, noting that by delaying so much of the ugliness of the new law until 2027 or beyond...
Political battles are usually won based on appealing to emotion, not to facts, policy or logic.
However, you should still have those facts at your disposal for two reasons: First, they still help you craft appeals to emotion. Second, they also help you craft the actual policy. Besides, I'm a data guy; my primary job is to help put facts & policy into easily-understandable context.
With all the understandable focus on Congressional Republicans efforts to effectively end Medicaid coverage for nearly 21 million Americans enrolled via ACA expansion, there's been much less attention paid to the other looming threat to healthcare coverage: The expiration of the upgraded financial subsidies for ~24.2 million ACA exchange enrollees, which are currently scheduled to end this New Year's Eve.
As I've explained numerous times before, the ACA's original premium subsidy formula was always far too stingy to make individual market policies affordable for many people...and worse yet, the subsidies cut off entirely for households making more than 4 times the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
With the pending dire threat to several of these programs (primarily Medicaid & the ACA) from the House Republican Budget Proposal which recently passed, I'm going a step further and am generating pie charts which visualize just how much of every Congressional District's total population is at risk of losing healthcare coverage.
USE THE DROP-DOWN MENU ABOVE TO FIND YOUR STATE & DISTRICT.
With the pending dire threat to several of these programs (primarily Medicaid & the ACA) from the House Republican Budget Proposal which recently passed, I'm going a step further and am generating pie charts which visualize just how much of every Congressional District's total population is at risk of losing healthcare coverage.
USE THE DROP-DOWN MENU ABOVE TO FIND YOUR STATE & DISTRICT.
There are 29 House districts where Republicans won by 12 points or less.
Below I've posted district-wide enrollment in ACA exchange-based Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), ACA Basic Health Plans (BHPs) and Medicaid via ACA expansion.
Across these 29 districts alone, a total of nearly 2.7 million Americans are at risk of either losing healthcare coverage entirely or, if they don't, having to deal with MASSIVE premium hikes and/or a MOUNTAIN of paperwork on a regular basis to keep it due to a combination of H.R. 1 (the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act") being implemented, the GOP allowing the IRA subsidies to expire at the end of this year, and the Trump Administration implementing CMS's recent "Integrity Rule" starting this fall.
That's around 12% of the total populations of these districts.
With the pending dire threat to several of these programs (primarily Medicaid & the ACA) from the House Republican Budget Proposal which recently passed, I'm going a step further and am generating pie charts which visualize just how much of every Congressional District's total population is at risk of losing healthcare coverage.
USE THE DROP-DOWN MENU ABOVE TO FIND YOUR STATE & DISTRICT.
With the pending dire threat to several of these programs (primarily Medicaid & the ACA) from the House Republican Budget Proposal which recently passed, I'm going a step further and am generating pie charts which visualize just how much of every Congressional District's total population is at risk of losing healthcare coverage.
USE THE DROP-DOWN MENU ABOVE TO FIND YOUR STATE & DISTRICT.
Back in March, the Health & Human Services (HHS) Dept. and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a so-called "Marketplace Integrity & Affordability Rule" which would include sweeping changes to how the ACA exchanges (both the federal one (HealthCare.Gov) and the 20-odd state-based ones (Covered California, MNsure, etc) operate, as well as who is or isn't eligible to enroll in ACA exchange coverage, restrictions on subsidy eligibility and so forth.
Many of these changes are simply repeals/reversals of improvements put into place during the Biden Administration; others are completely new ones being put into place by the Trump Regime under RFK Jr. & Dr. Oz.
However, until today, these were still technically only proposed changes. Now they're official. The final version isn't quite as bad as it could have been, and there's one or two items on the list which I'm not that upset about, but overall...yeah, it's pretty ugly.
16 Million Americans Would Become Uninsured Due to Reconciliation Bill and Loss of Tax Credits; 8.2 Million in Marketplaces Alone
Leaders from State-based Health Insurance Marketplaces, Enrollees, Providers, and Small Business Highlight Potential, Devastating Impacts
(Washington, DC) The Congressional Reconciliation bill and loss of federal tax credits would result in 16 million Americans losing health coverage, including 8.2 million enrolled in Health Insurance Marketplaces. By stripping millions of lives from the Marketplaces, health care will be more expensive, harder to access, create a strain on health care systems, and hurt small businesses.
