Of the estimated 67 million people in the United States who will likely be affected by Medicaid cuts, about 3.6 million recipients live in New York City, and more than 1.3 million are concentrated in three congressional districts.
Those districts cover parts of The Bronx, northern Manhattan and Queens, according to a Healthbeat analysis of district data and KFF, a nonprofit organization focusing on health care issues.
New Yorkers rely on Medicaid programs for everything from HIV treatment to home healthcare. The new changes to Medicaid — the public health insurance program for millions of low-income Americans that’s paid for by the federal government and individual states — are the result of H.R.1, the budget package that passed last summer and will slash $1 trillion from the Medicaid program over the next decade. As of Jan. 1, enrollees between ages 19 to 64 must prove that they are working, going to school, volunteering or participating in a job-training program for at least 80 hours per month to keep their coverage. The rules are intended to push more people into the workforce and reduce what Republicans have described as waste and fraud in government programs…