Few things in life are as important as staying healthy. No matter if you are a college student or a retiree, staying in good physical and mental shape is the only way we can make sure we all live long and happy lives.

However, in the United States, staying healthy comes at a cost. 

Between the government and private citizens, the U.S. spent $4.9 trillion on healthcare in 2023. In the same year, healthcare expenses made up 8% of the average family’s annual expenses, which can amount to thousands of dollars spent per household.

Healthcare’s large price tag is why both state and federal governments have programs like Medicaid that are designed to cover the healthcare costs of those who can’t afford them. 

Yet, these programs are under the scrutiny of lawmakers. As part of negotiations around the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, both U.S. House and Senate Republicans released versions of a budget plan that would cut funding from and impose new restrictions on Medicaid recipients.

According to an early estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, these cuts would redirect $625 billion away from the Medicaid program and lead to 7.6 million Americans becoming uninsured over the next ten years. 

These federal cuts are compounded by recent cuts to Minnesota state programs, including the repealing of a 2023 law that provided healthcare coverage to adults living in the country illegally.

These cuts don’t just impact those losing their healthcare coverage. The ripple effects will be felt across the healthcare system, especially in emergency rooms.

Lynn Blewett, a professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota and the director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, said cuts to medical coverage force patients to skip important preventative care steps such as vaccines, causing them to end up in the emergency room with more serious conditions.

“If you wait until it’s the worst case scenario and go to an ED, the hospital has to provide you treatment,” Blewett said. “They get no reimbursement from any program to cover the cost.”

Kim Tjaden, a St. Cloud-based family medicine physician and chair of the Minnesota Medical Association’s Board of Trustees, said emergency rooms, which are already strained, will feel the effects of healthcare cuts due to their obligation to treat everyone.

“ERs cannot and will not turn people away, it’s an ethical as well as a legal obligation,” Tjaden said. “So if you are there and you are sick, I have to take care of you.”

Tjaden added that life-saving medical care in emergency situations is much more expensive than long-term preventative care, increasing the economic burden on both patients and hospitals.

“The cost of me seeing you and managing your blood pressure for ten years is cheaper than you coming in with heart failure in ten years,” Tjaden said.

Cutting healthcare coverage for patients does not mean their health needs magically disappear. The 7.6 million Americans who may lose out on Medicaid coverage will still have emergencies, and those emergencies need to be paid for.

Blewett said the additional cost of paying for emergency healthcare for people without insurance will be distributed to all patients by the hospital, making healthcare more expensive for everyone in the long run.

“What happens is they build those costs into the overall cost structure and expenditures, and it’s spread across the entire system,” Blewett said. “Those who have insurance pay more because we all continue to pay for that care, and we pay it in more inefficient and low-quality ways.”

Outside of the increased strain on hospitals, certain groups will also feel the effects of these cuts more strongly than others.

Blewett said University students from low-income households would be among those targeted by many of the proposed restrictions on Medicaid, including new work or volunteering requirements to qualify for coverage.

“If any student is already on Medicaid, these cuts are targeted to you,” Blewett said. “You’re going to have to tell how you’re working, where you’re working, all the paperwork, we don’t really know what it’s going to be, but it’s going to be onerous.”

Tjaden said people without legal status in the U.S., who are already less inclined to get medical care, will be further driven away by state-level cuts to their insurance coverage.

“They’re already nervous about coming in,” Tjaden said. “If we take away their health insurance, again, we’re gonna lose all of that prevention, and then we’re gonna have much higher costs and much sicker folks down the road.”

Medicaid cuts would also hit rural Minnesotans particularly hard, as rural counties have significantly higher percentages of people on Medicaid than urban counties.

Tjaden said people in rural areas, particularly farmers, depend on Medicaid for health coverage due to a lack of other options.

“They don’t work for big companies that offer health insurance, and they don’t have the finances to buy their own health insurance,” Tjaden said. “So, they really need systems like Medicaid.”

Cuts to government-provided healthcare increase the burden on our healthcare system and threaten the health of all Minnesotans. These burdens only increase healthcare prices in the long run, worsening the problem.

While healthcare is expensive and budget deficits are an important problem, cutting healthcare coverage for the most vulnerable among us is not the solution.