States Pay Deloitte, Others Millions To Comply With Trump Law To Cut Medicaid Rolls

Key Points:

• States are spending millions on contractors like Deloitte, Accenture, and Optum to update eligibility systems for Medicaid and SNAP to comply with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which imposes work requirements and other restrictions that will reduce benefits for millions of low-income Americans.
• The law is projected to cause 7.5 million people to lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 and 2.4 million to lose monthly cash assistance for food, with states incurring high costs to implement system changes while saving money by removing beneficiaries.
• Work requirements mandate that millions of Medicaid enrollees prove they are working or engaged in similar activities, a historic shift that experts warn will lead to significant coverage losses due to added administrative hurdles and system errors.
• Several states have reported multimillion-dollar expenses for system modifications: Wisconsin estimates nearly $10.2 million, Iowa $20.3 million, Illinois $12 million, and Vermont $1.8 million, with most costs federally funded but significant burdens on state agencies.
• Advocacy groups and healthcare providers criticize the policy and spending, arguing that it harms vulnerable populations without benefits, while contractors continue to secure lucrative state contracts amid promises of discounts to ease implementation costs.