WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) today urged their colleagues to reject proposed Republican Medicaid cuts that are projected to inflict severe harm on millions of families, citing a new analysis estimating that the GOP’s plans to slash health care would push 5.4 million people – including 2.2 million people currently on Medicaid and 3.2 million people with coverage through the Affordable Care Act – into medical debt and increase the total medical debt that Americans owe by $50 billion – a 15 percent jump.

“Health coverage is prevention. It’s not just treating illness; it’s protecting families from financial ruin. Republicans are trying to gut Medicaid to give tax breaks to the wealthy, and working families will pay the price with their health, their homes, and their financial futures. We should be focused on expanding access to health care and lowering costs, not ripping coverage away and sticking people with thousands of dollars in new debt. We’re calling on our Republican colleagues to drop this dangerous proposal before it’s too late,” said the senators.

Recent analysis published by Third Way, a centrist think tank, found that families losing coverage because of the Republican health care cuts could see their medical debt increase by as much as $22,800. The analysis found that, if the GOP plan is enacted, 107,001 more people in Virginia will be saddled with medical debt, and the amount of medical debt across Virginia would increase by $1,001,789,466.

Medical debt already affects 100 million people in the U.S., amounting to $269 billion in unpaid medical bills. According to a recent Gallup survey, 31 million Americans report having to borrow nearly $74 billion between 2023 and 2024 to pay for health care, and 58 percent of Americans believe they would experience medical debt if faced with a health event. Despite that, Republicans in Congress are pushing a package that, if enacted, will impose the largest cuts to health care in U.S. history and lead to 16 million people in the U.S. losing health insurance coverage.

Sens. Warner and Kaine have been sounding the alarm about the effects of the GOP plan on Virginia families if Republicans in Congress continue to insist on gutting vital programs in order to pay for tax breaks for the richest Americans, noting that the GOP bill would strip health insurance from more than 302,000 Virginians, cut SNAP benefits, raise energy costs for Virginia households, jeopardize more than 20,000 Virginia jobs, raise taxes on minimum wage workers while giving the richest 0.1% a $188,000 tax cut, make tax filing more expensive, explode the deficit, and devastate rural communities.

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