There has been substantial reporting and commentary on the impacts of the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA). The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that those cuts will total  $911 billion, and that about 10 million people would lose their insurance coverage through a combination of factors.

It stands to reason that the loss of funding that will drive millions of people to lose access to health care will also have substantial impacts on jobs in the health care industry. These effects have received less attention, but will have lasting impacts on workers, communities and local economies. So it is important to consider what the available research tells us.

JAMA Health Forum published an analysis that estimates a range of outcomes based on an earlier CBO estimate of 7.6 million people losing their Medicaid coverage. The authors make an important point about how loss of coverage will impact providers: “Federally qualified health centers could lose 5.0 million Medicaid patients while gaining 1.9 million uninsured patients annually, resulting in a $3.3 billion revenue reduction.” The paper estimates that the cuts would result in 302,000 jobs lost by the year 2034, and $135 billion in reduced economic output. There will also be losses in state and local tax revenues of just over $11 billion.

There have been other efforts to forecast the potential impact on workers. An analysis by the Greater New York Hospital Association and the Healthcare Association of New York State found 34,000 hospital jobs would be lost, along with 29,000 jobs in related industries. Their findings are based on using the IMPLAN model to project the impacts of $8 billion in funding losses at hospitals in the state. The Commonwealth Fund also used IMPLAN modeling to assess cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Their report estimates that by 2029, 496,900 jobs in healthcare will be lost due to Medicaid cuts (see Appendix Table 1). That report is based on estimates from the House version of the reconciliation bill; the final version of the legislation makes steeper cuts, so the job losses will likely be greater.

One important point that these reports drive home is the growth in the health care workforce. A recent Health Affairs analysis notes that “‘Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities’ is the single largest private-sector industry with net job growth over the past 20 years.” Within that category are long-term care and home and community-based services – both of which are substantially supported by Medicaid funding. As funding for these services have increased, so have jobs. Cutting that funding will wind up costing jobs.

It has been noted – most recently by the New York Times – that the health care sector has been a consistent source of strong job growth over the past few years. The Health Affairs piece, for instance, points out that “jobs in health care and social assistance have continued to grow accounting for more than half of total payroll growth over the past 16 months.” It is a sector of the economy that accounts for much of US job growth; the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s new law will push things in the opposite direction.

This first appeared on CEPR.

The post Medicaid Cuts Will Be a Jobs Killer appeared first on CounterPunch.org.