---
type: source
title: "CBO Final Score: OBBBA Medicaid Cuts Will Cause 10 Million to Lose Coverage by 2034"
author: "KFF Health News / CBO (aggregated analysis)"
url: https://www.kff.org/medicaid/how-will-the-2025-budget-reconciliation-affect-the-aca-medicaid-and-the-uninsured-rate/
date: 2025-07-24
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: analysis
status: processed
processed_by: vida
processed_date: 2026-04-04
priority: high
tags: [obbba, medicaid-cuts, coverage-loss, vbc-infrastructure, work-requirements, provider-tax]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

The Congressional Budget Office's final score for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 4, 2025) projects:

**Coverage losses:**
- 10 million Americans uninsured by 2034 (relative to January 2025 baseline)
- Timeline: 1.3M in 2026 → 5.2M in 2027 → 6.8M in 2028 → 8.6M in 2029 → 10M in 2034
- Medicaid provisions alone account for 7.8 million of 10 million total

**Primary drivers:**
- Work requirements (80 hrs/month for able-bodied adults 19-65): 5.3M uninsured by 2034 (single largest driver)
- More frequent redeterminations (every 6 months, starting October 1, 2026): 700K additional
- Provider tax restrictions: 1.2M additional uninsured

**Fiscal scope:**
- $793 billion reduction in federal Medicaid spending over 10 years
- $990 billion total Medicaid and CHIP reductions combined
- $204 billion increase in uncompensated care costs

**Provider tax freeze:**
- States prohibited from establishing new provider taxes; existing taxes frozen
- Expansion state provider taxes must reduce to 3.5% by 2032
- Provider taxes currently fund 17%+ of state Medicaid share (30%+ in Michigan, NH, Ohio)

**Implementation timeline:**
- Work requirements effective December 31, 2026
- Semi-annual eligibility redeterminations: October 1, 2026
- Expansion incentive elimination: January 1, 2026
- Additional cost-sharing for expansion adults: October 1, 2028

**Rural impact:**
- $50 billion rural health transformation program (FY 2026-2030) — partially offsetting, grant-based

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the most consequential healthcare policy event in the KB since Vida's creation. The OBBBA simultaneously (1) fragments continuous enrollment that VBC requires, (2) freezes the provider tax mechanism states were using to fund CHW programs, and (3) increases uncompensated care that strains FQHCs where CHW programs operate. The VBC attractor state assumes enrollment stability — OBBBA systematically breaks that precondition.

**What surprised me:** The TIMING of coverage loss. 1.3 million uninsured in 2026, 5.2 million in 2027 — this is not a 2030 problem. VBC plans with 2026-2027 enrollment strategies will feel this IMMEDIATELY. The provider tax freeze is especially damaging because it cuts off the state-level mechanism for CHW expansion at the exact moment when CHW RCT evidence was strongest.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Direct OBBBA provisions targeting CHW or VBC programs specifically. The impact is indirect but structurally severe: coverage fragmentation → prevention economics fail; provider tax freeze → CHW infrastructure can't scale. No specific "CHW program" cut — just systematic erosion of every condition VBC and CHW need to function.

**KB connections:**
- Directly challenges the healthcare attractor state is a prevention-first system... — the attractor requires enrollment stability that OBBBA breaks
- Extends value-based care transitions stall at the payment boundary — now adding a new stall mechanism: population stability
- Contextualizes the March 18 finding on CHW reimbursement (20 states with SPAs) — provider tax freeze prevents the other 30 states from catching up

**Extraction hints:** Multiple claims possible — OBBBA coverage loss timeline (proven), VBC enrollment stability mechanism (structural analysis), provider tax freeze CHW impact (likely), rural health transformation offset (partial counterpoint).

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[value-based care transitions stall at the payment boundary because 60 percent of payments touch value metrics but only 14 percent bear full risk]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Documents the largest single policy disruption to VBC infrastructure — not through payment model change but through coverage fragmentation destroying VBC's population stability requirement
EXTRACTION HINT: Extractor should focus on the VBC enrollment stability mechanism: WHY does continuous enrollment matter for VBC math, and HOW does OBBBA break it. This is a structural analysis claim, not a simple "cuts are bad" claim.
