• After U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed the Senate in early July 2025, rumors circulated that the amended bill would result in 17 million people losing access to health care.

  • The 17 million figure came from an analysis from KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on health policy, adding more recent numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. Further, Democrats on the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee provided their own estimate using CBO data and landed on the same number.

  • This estimate was based on funding cuts added to the bill in the Senate for the Medicaid program, publicly funded health insurance for people with limited income and resources, and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare. Medicaid provided health care access for more than 78 million people as of this writing, according to the program’s enrollment data.

  • The estimates included not only people affected by the budget bill, but also by other policies by the Trump administration, including the end of tax credits for health insurance premiums provided by the ACA.

  • The bill may still change, however, which means the estimates of how many people will lose access to health care may change as well.

After the U.S. Senate voted to pass President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” on July 1, 2025, rumors circulated that the amended bill would result in 17 million people losing access to health care. This was due to projected cuts to Medicaid provided for in the bill.

For example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, posted the claim on X (archived):

As of this writing, the post had garnered 3.2 million views and 85,000 likes. Other posts on X and Facebook also spread the claim, including one by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

The bill, which could still be amended, provided for about $1 trillion in funding cuts for Medicaid, according to a June 30 note by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities based on data from the Congressional Budget Office.

Medicaid had more than 78 million enrollees as of March 2025.

In a June 16 letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone and Richard Neal, of New Jersey and Massachusetts, respectively, the CBO estimated that the budget bill as it stood would result in 16 million people becoming uninsured by 2034. This number included 10.9 million people losing Medicaid coverage access to health insurance through the Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare, because of the bill.

After the bill was amended in the Senate, the CBO estimated tit would result in 11.8 million people losing Medicaid and ACA coverage. This led KFF — a nonprofit organization focused on health policy — to estimate that 17 million people would lose access to health insurance by 2034.

The Democrats of the Joint Economic Committee also created an estimate based on CBO data, breaking down numbers by state and asserting that 17 million people across the U.S. would lose their health insurance by 2034 due to the budget bill and other policies of the Trump administration.

However, it is important to note that these were only estimates based on a bill that could still change as it returned to the House of Representatives for a vote.

Sources:

Cox, Cynthia. “About 17 Million More People Could Be Uninsured due to the Big Beautiful Bill and Other Policy Changes.” KFF, 1 July 2025, www.kff.org/quick-take/about-17-million-more-people-could-be-uninsured-due-to-the-big-beautiful-bill-and-other-policy-changes/. Accessed 2 July 2025.

“Estimated Budgetary Effects of an Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Relative to CBO’s January 2025 Baseline.” Congressional Budget Office, 29 June 2025, www.cbo.gov/publication/61534. Accessed 2 July 2025.

Euhus, Rhiannon, et al. “Allocating CBO’s Estimates of Federal Medicaid Spending Reductions across the States: Senate Reconciliation Bill | KFF.” KFF, 1 July 2025, www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/allocating-cbos-estimates-of-federal-medicaid-spending-reductions-across-the-states-senate-reconciliation-bill/. Accessed 2 July 2025.

Medicaid. “October 2024 Medicaid & CHIP Enrollment Data Highlights | Medicaid.” Medicaid.gov, 2025, www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medicaid-and-chip-enrollment-data/report-highlights. Accessed 2 July 2025.

News, NBC. “Live Updates: Trump-Backed ‘Big Beautiful’ Bill Moves to House after Senate Republicans Make Changes.” NBC News, 2 July 2025, www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-big-beautiful-bill-house-taxes-immigration-live-updates-rcna215840. Accessed 2 July 2025.

States, United. “Press Releases – United States Joint Economic Committee.” Senate.gov, 30 June 2025, www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/press-releases. Accessed 2 July 2025.

Swagel, Phillip. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE. 4 June 2025, www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-06/Wyden-Pallone-Neal_Letter_6-4-25.pdf. Accessed 2 July 2025.