1.6 Million Americans Removed From Health Care Plan Under...

By Jasmine Laws

US News Reporter

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Around 1.6 million Americans were removed from the federal health program Medicaid during the first six months of President Donald Trump's second term, according to data collected by the health news organization KFF.

These Americans were removed from the program as part of an unwinding process happening in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the former President Joe Biden expanded access to the health insurance program.

Newsweek has contacted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) via email for comment.

Why It Matters

While the 1.6 million Americans were disenrolled from the program due to a process that has been ongoing since March 2023, there is more concern around the impact the Medicaid unwinding process could have on Americans in light of the upcoming cuts to Medicaid and other changes to American health insurance set to come in next year.

As part of Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill', there will be around $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted would see millions pushed off the program, and experts have also warned many more could lose their coverage due to the administrative burden of the new work requirements.

A former President Barack Obama policy that helped more Americans get access to Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans is also set to expire as the Trump administration has taken no action to renew the ACA enhanced tax credits.

The expiration of the enhanced tax credits means national average increases for ACA plans are forecast to go up around 20 percent, and those working in small businesses, those who are retired and students are likely going to be the most affected.

A nurse helps a patient on crutches walk in a hospital.

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What To Know

Under the Biden administration, some states expanded access to Medicaid in order to support more low income and vulnerable Americans during the national public health emergency that was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Medicaid enrollment expanded from around 64.5 million in February 2020 to 87 million in March 2023, as a result.

Due to federal law, these states were only allowed to begin disenrolling Americans that got access to the program during the expansion after March 2023.

This unwinding process has therefore led to widespread decreases in Medicaid enrollment since March 2023.

In January 2025, when Trump began his second term in office, 72,011,017 Americans were enrolled in the Medicaid program, but by July 2025, that number was 70,356,307.

Even without the planned cuts to Medicaid, and increases in health insurance premiums for ACA plans, the Medicaid unwinding process has been concerning many experts, who fear that the rise in uninsured Americans will have implications on the health of the country as a whole.

However, the increases in uninsurance from the Medicaid unwinding process "appear modest so far, which suggests that many people were able to find alternative coverage," Lindsey Leininger, a professor of business administration and director of the Center for Health Care at the Dartmouth College, told Newsweek.

She added that Medicaid enrollment has "fallen from its pandemic-era peak, but it remains almost 10 percent higher than before the pandemic," and she said that both of these trends "offer reassurance."

However, she said this is not the same picture across all states. "Several states have experienced very large enrollment declines, in some cases as much as 15 percent below pre-pandemic levels," she said.

She said that while the state-level data on how these losses translated into uninsurance is not currently available, "it is hard to believe they did not leave more people uninsured."

What People Are Saying

Lindsey Leininger, a professor of business administration and director of the Center for Health Care at the Dartmouth College, told Newsweek: "In addition, a churn in and out of coverage is disruptive to care. Insurance transitions often force patients to change doctors or prescriptions because networks and formularies differ across plans. Consider a parent of a child with special needs receiving care at an academic medical center. These centers typically accept Medicaid and are at the forefront of complex pediatric care. Losing Medicaid and moving to a lower-cost employer plan with a narrow network can reduce access to crucial specialists and treatments. These are real losses for very vulnerable families."

She added: "Looking ahead, many of us in the Medicaid community are worried about the combined effect of looming work requirements and broader program cuts. We have decades of evidence showing that increasing administrative red tape leads to lower Medicaid enrollment, and work requirements in particular create rolls and rolls of red tape to implement and enforce. I value program integrity, which is often cited as the goal of work requirements, but in this context that goal comes at a very high cost for low-income families who are already doing their best to navigate a complicated system."

Paul Shafer, a professor of health law, policy and management and co-director of the Medicaid Policy Lab at Boston University, told Newsweek: "We have already cut 17 million people from Medicaid and CHIP since the peak in April 2023 and this only stands to get worse. Work reporting requirements, more frequent paperwork, and fears related to immigration enforcement will push many more out of the program. When combined with the expiration of the enhanced subsidies for Marketplace coverage, we can anticipate a considerable jump in the uninsured rate in the coming years."

He said: "Without health insurance or feeling the budget crunch of more expensive premiums, people will go without the care and medications that they need. This could create a vicious cycle where those who are already struggling most end up going without or delaying care—seeing their health get worse, which then can lead to avoidable health issues with even higher costs to treat and impacts on people’s lives."

He added: "People with lower incomes, chronic conditions, those who struggle with health literacy and so-called administrative burdens—like paperwork—are ones who will certainly suffer in this environment. We are making it a harder needle to thread to be able to navigate the processes and afford to stay covered if you don’t have health insurance through work."

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