The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)’s analysis of potential Medicaid reform proposals underscores ACH’s prior warnings to Congress: sweeping Medicaid cuts put our country’s health care safety net at risk and would have an outsized impact on patients served by community health centers. If all the proposals reviewed by CBO – including reducing provider taxes, implementing per capita caps, and rolling back eligibility protections – were enacted into law, nearly 10 million Americans would lose their health insurance coverage, and states would cut provider reimbursements.

Health centers, required by law to serve everyone in their communities, will be doubly impacted by these proposals: reimbursement for remaining Medicaid patients will decrease, and the number of uninsured people seeking care will increase. This would almost certainly result in health center closures, putting patients in rural and underserved areas at risk of not being able to access care.

ACH urges Congress to reject any proposals that would result in such coverage losses and looks forward to reviewing legislation once it is released by the relevant committees.

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About Advocates for Community Health
Established in 2021, Advocates for Community Health (ACH) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization of community health centers dedicated to forward-thinking and ambitious federal policy and advocacy on behalf of health centers, their patients, and their communities. To learn more, visit advocatesforcommunityhealth.org.