WASHINGTON (July 3, 2025)--The massive budget reconciliation bill - OBBBA - under consideration by lawmakers on Capitol Hill includes changes to Medicaid that threaten the stability and continued viability of community health centers, clinics that operate in more than 15,600 sites nationwide and serve an estimated 31 million people. If the budget reconciliation bill is signed into law, the changes to Medicaid will erase important gains made over the past decade following adoption of the Affordable Care Act and affect the health of entire communities, according to a new data note released by the Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health at the George Washington University.
The bill includes mandatory work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, a change that by itself would strip health coverage from 5.6 million community health center patients. Other changes include barriers to getting and renewing Medicaid coverage and the failure to renew generous subsidies for the ACA’s Marketplace health plans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that at least 16 million more people would become uninsured by 2034 as a result of the bill, many of whom are people who rely on community health centers for their care.
Community health centers form the bedrock of the nation’s healthcare safety net and they stand to lose “tens of billions of dollars in revenues essential to maintaining their core services,” according to the data note.
The data note was authored by Feygele Jacobs and Sara Rosenbaum at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health as well as Kay Johnson of Johnson Policy Consulting.
Read the data note, What Does it Mean for Community Health Centers, their Patients, and Communities to Lose the Post-ACA Gains?
Read a blog published by the same authors, Patients at Risk of Losing Private Coverage.
-GW-