Citing New Study, Sanders Calls Trump-GOP Budget Bill a 'Death Sentence' for 51,000 People Yearly

An analysis released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale estimates that more than 51,000 additional people across the United States would die unnecessarily each year if the Republican Party's budget reconciliation package becomes law.

The analysis, requested by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), focuses specifically on the Trump-GOP bill's attacks on healthcare, examining the deadly consequences of throwing millions of people off Medicaid and barring implementation of a Biden-era rule requiring nursing homes that receive federal funding to meet minimum staffing levels.

The researchers project:

• 11,300 deaths from the loss of Medicaid or Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage due to 7.7 million people losing coverage;
• 18,200 deaths due to the loss of Medicaid coverage among 1.38 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries, causing loss of access to low-income prescription drug subsidies; and
• 13,000 deaths among Medicaid enrollees in nursing homes due to the rollback of CMS's 2024 nursing home minimum staffing rule.

The analysis also finds that the GOP bill's failure to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to lapse at the end of the year would cause an additional 8,811 deaths per year, bringing the total to more than 51,300.

"Let's be clear. The Republican reconciliation bill, which makes massive cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for huge tax breaks for billionaires, is not just bad public policy. It is not just immoral. It is a death sentence for struggling Americans," Sanders said in response to the findings. "That's not Bernie Sanders talking. That is precisely what experts at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have found."

"In other words, when you throw 13.7 million Americans off the healthcare they have as the CBO has estimated, when you increase the cost of prescription drugs for low-income seniors, and when you make nursing homes throughout America less safe, not only will some of the most vulnerable people throughout our country suffer, but tens of thousands will die," Sanders added. "We cannot allow that to happen."

Warren Gunnels, Sanders' staff director, contrasted the projected consequences of the Trump-GOP healthcare agenda with those of Medicare for All, which previous research suggests would prevent 68,000 needless deaths per year while saving the country hundreds of billions of dollars annually on healthcare costs.

Sanders argued Tuesday that "in the wealthiest country in the world, we should be guaranteeing healthcare to all as a human right, not taking healthcare away from millions of seniors and working families to pay for tax breaks for billionaires."

"As the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I will be doing everything that I can to see that this disastrous bill is defeated," said Sanders.

The new research was published as the Senate weighs the House-passed GOP reconciliation package, which would slash Medicaid by more than $700 billion over the next decade and enact deep cuts to federal nutrition assistance and other programs—all to help fund massive tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

Late last week, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sparked outrage with a sarcastic response to a constituent's warning that "people will die" from the GOP's proposed Medicaid cuts—a fear borne out by the new analysis from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.

Over the weekend, Ernst followed up her remark with a non-apology that, to critics, underscored the cruelty of the Trump-GOP agenda.

"If Republicans get their way, families will be forced to choose between groceries or seeing a doctor, sick children will be turned away from care, and lives will be lost—and Ernst and Republicans don't seem to care," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care. "That's because the Republican healthcare agenda isn't about protecting families or lowering costs, it's about slashing millions' healthcare in order to bankroll massive tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and companies."