About 7.5 million Medicaid-enrolled adults may lose coverage for cancer screening within the first two years after implementation of the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Bill, according to a study published Jan. 8 in JAMA Oncology.
The 2025 Budget Reconciliation Bill — commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — ties work requirements and eligibility recertification to Medicaid enrollment. The bill also reduces federal Medicaid funding by nearly $1 trillion.
Researchers from the University of Chicago modeled how work and recertification requirements would affect adult Medicaid enrollment at the state level between 2027 and 2028. Coverage loss was then converted to missed screenings and incident cancers using data from the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program.
Here are three notes from the study:
- Loss of cancer screening coverage due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act may result in 405,706 missed mammograms, 679,745 missed colorectal screening tests and 67,213 missed lung cancer screenings.
- Missed screening may lead to 1,055 undetected breast cancers, 748 undetected colorectal cancers and 538 undetected lung cancers between 2027 and 2028.
Of those, 156 breast, 105 colon and 65 lung cancers may present at a more advanced disease stage, when treatment is less effective. - Screening and cancer outcome estimates varied by state. States with expanded Medicaid or state-level safety-net screening programs were projected to have fewer missed screenings and subsequent cancers.
Read the full study here.
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