Who is Losing Medicaid under Republican’s Bill

Brief piece on which employees are mostly impacted by cuts in Medicaid. And a state statement from a Senator from Oklahoma who basically says, “no worries, they could just get employer-based healthcare insurance.” Which if this were true, why would they take Medicaid? It is far easier and less of a bother, if they could get employer-based healthcare insurance. Someone is covering their ass with a lame statement.

“Workers Most Likely to Lose Medicaid Can’t Rely on Employer-Based Coverage,” CEPR

In a recent CNBC interview, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said the people who lose Medicaid coverage under the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will merely transition to employer-sponsored health care:

“It’s not kicking people off Medicaid. It’s transitioning from Medicaid to employer-provided health care. So yes, we’ve got 10 million people that are not going to be on Medicaid, but they then are going to be on employer-provided health care.”

AB: Is Oklahoma Senator James Lankford really that dumb? Or is he hoping, we all are that dumb and will believe his comment? In case you missed it. The OK Senator believes (or is faking it) people dropped from Medicaid will just migrate over to company healthcare. Of course, it could be an option company healthcare really existed. It does not. Of course, the CEPR article states similar about Lankford’s statement. Back to CEPR.

What Senator Lankford clearly does not understand (if you believe this is true), those the most impacted by the Medicaid cuts (he supports) are often workers in industries less likely to offer employer-based coverage. Furthermore, they also have more volatile employment and hours. Only 47 percent of workers in the restaurant industry have employer-based coverage and 54 percent in the construction industry.¹ The majority of those 10 million workers Senator Lankford referenced won’t be able to ‘transition’ to employer-provided insurance. It simply does not exist.

As it is currently, the Medicaid cuts proposed in the GOP budget bill would cut nearly 2 million restaurant workers from Medicaid. The cuts are a whopping 21.8 percent of the industry as a whole. This is more than all of the restaurant workers in the state of California (1.4 million in April 2025).² The construction industry would lose the second most Medicaid beneficiaries (1.5 million). The work most impacted by these cuts are from across the economy encompassing construction to grocery stores to home health services to hotels.

The chart shows the impact of the Republicans bill which disqualifies a number of citizens from Medicaid.

1. Author’s calculations of March 2024 Annual Social Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
2. Current Employment Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.