NEW: Incoming Congress Could Double Uninsured Rate in Arizona
“That's the kind of math that closes our rural and critical access hospitals.”
PHOENIX — The incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress could double the uninsured rate in Arizona by making cuts to Medicaid and eliminating cost-saving tax credits that help millions more afford private health insurance coverage.
Arizona expanded Medicaid in 2014 – a move made possible by the passage of the Affordable Care Act – and as a result, over 400,000 Arizonans were able to access coverage under the state's Medicaid program known as Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS).
Congressman Juan Ciscomani and David Schweikert are members of the Republican Study Committee that has repeatedly laid out budgets that would make massive cuts to the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act's tax credits for health care coverage. The tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025 unless the Republican-controlled Congress extends them.
According to the Arizona Republic:
It's unclear how many more state Medicaid enrollees would be affected by a reduction in enhanced federal funding but it could be more than a half million people. The adult Medicaid expansion population in Arizona is 70,866 people. An additional population of 448,592 childless adults is likely to be affected by a drop in enhanced federal funding because of a hospital assessment that the federal funding drop would eliminate.
If 70,866 or more Arizonans lose AHCCCS coverage and can't afford to purchase their own health insurance, the result would be what's known as "cost shifting," where health care expenses shift from the government program to the hospital and provider system that will have to give uncompensated care to uninsured people, said Dr. Daniel Derksen, a health policy expert who is director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the University of Arizona.
Medicaid is not the only health care program that could be on the chopping block when Congress reconvenes and a new presidential administration assumes control of federal agencies. Federal subsidies that have significantly reduced monthly premiums for health insurance marketplace plans offered through the Affordable Care Act, known as the ACA, are set to expire at the end of 2025. ACA health plans are also sometimes called Obamacare.
Without enhanced ACA subsidies and with Medicaid cuts, Derksen said, Arizona's rate of uninsured people would likely end up ‘pretty close to where we were before the Affordable Care Act. I think we'd be at between 18% and 20% uninsured, potentially one in five Arizonans being uninsured (versus an uninsured rate of between 9% and 11% now),’ he said ‘That's the kind of math that closes our rural and critical access hospitals.’”
“Millions of Arizonans rely on AHCCCS and ACA tax credits to benefit from quality affordable health care coverage but the proposals to take away this coverage puts the lives of millions of Americans at risk,” said Honest Arizona Executive Director Andrea Moreno. “With ACA tax credits expiring next year and coverage for working families at risk, Congressmen Schweikert and Ciscomani need to protect Arizonans' right to health care, period.”
###