330K To Lose Health Care In IL; Food Benefits Threatened For 360K Under Trump's Bill

ILLINOIS — Roughly 330,000 Illinoisans will lose health coverage under President Donald Trump’s recently passed “Big, Beautiful Bill,” and food benefits will be threatened for about 360,000 people in the Prairie State, Gov. JB Pritzker said this week.

“The widespread health and economic impacts of the largest cut to Medicaid in American history will be devastating for years to come,” Pritzker said in a news release. “It will cost people their livelihoods, strain working families, shutter hospitals, and slash reproductive healthcare.”

Illinois currently has 3.4 million Medicaid enrollees, according to the governor’s office, which said that, in addition to those who will lose care, families in the state with Affordable Care Act plans will pay an average of $1,032 more annually in premiums, with rural residents paying an estimated $1,700 more.

The state is expected to lose about $52 billion in Medicaid funds over 10 years, the governor’s office said, citing Manatt Health.

Pritzker’s office in a separate news release described the bill's cuts and alterations to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as “draconian.”

The legislation removes work requirement exemptions for 23,000 unhoused people, veterans and youth aged out of foster care in Illinois, according to the governor’s office. It will also require the state to contribute $705 million annually to SNAP, up from nothing.

In the 2025 fiscal year, $4.7 billion in SNAP benefits were issued to Illinoisans, supporting 1.8 million people, according to the governor’s office.

Trump’s nearly 900-page sprawling bill was signed by the president Friday. It includes tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.

To partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aimed to cut back on Medicaid and food assistance, arguing they were trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population the programs were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children.

The bill includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, among them older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older will have to meet the program's work requirements.

More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under the ACA, and 40 million use SNAP. Most already work, according to analysts.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps.

Republicans are looking to have states pick up some of the cost for SNAP benefits. Currently, the federal government funds all benefit costs. Under the bill, states beginning in 2028 will be required to contribute a set percentage of those costs if their payment error rate exceeds 6 percent.

Altogether, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase federal deficits over the next 10 years by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

The bill would cost America’s poorest people $1,600 a year, mainly due to reductions in Medicaid and food aid, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House's version of the legislation.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.