Gabriel Perna
May 23, 2025 - Modern Healthcare
Proposed cuts to Medicaid could dampen the growth Uber Health and Lyft Healthcare have seen by aligning with the federal assistance program.
A bill that would cut Medicaid and other programs by more than $1 trillion passed the House Thursday and moves to the Senate, where it faces a tough road to passage in its current form. The measure could reduce Medicaid enrollment by 7.6 million people, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.
The bill would not directly affect non-emergency transportation services, or NEMT, but fewer beneficiaries means fewer people needing rides for healthcare appointments.
Uber Health launched in 2018 and Lyft Healthcare in 2016. Both companies, along with others who offer non-emergency transportation, have benefited from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which codified that Medicaid would cover NEMT services. The law does not pose any direct threat to Lyft and Uber’s work with Medicaid populations but the proposed budget cuts could lead to other challenges, said Kacey Dugan, director of policy and regulatory affairs at law firm Faegre, Drinker Biddle & Reath.
“Fewer people on Medicaid means fewer people with benefits because while there are some instances in which a commercial or Medicare Advantage plan will cover some type of transportation service, there's no equivalent to the NEMT benefit in commercial coverage that people could transition to,” Dugan said. “So when you reduce the number of people on Medicaid, you will reduce almost to one to one the number of people with access to an NEMT benefit.”
Up to 4 million Medicaid beneficiaries used NEMT services between 2018-2021, according a June 2023 report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the most recent data available.
Buck Poropatich, vice president of Lyft Healthcare, said a significant drop in Medicaid enrollment could affect the company. But when the redeterminations process pushed more than 25 million people off Medicaid in 2023 and 2024, Lyft didn’t see much of a financial impact because the Medicaid members who use NEMT services were largely unaffected, he said.
The company expects to focus on Medicaid recipients with or without the cuts. Its ride-sharing service is incorporated into the Medicaid non-emergency transportation programs in 28 states, according to a report Lyft Healthcare released last week.
Dugan, who works with the nonprofit Medical Transportation Access Coalition, said the coalition and its NEMT member companies have lobbied Congress to protect Medicaid and its services. Lyft has also engaged with Congress, Poropatich said.
Uber has seen tangible growth among Medicare Advantage and Medicaid members in the last four years, said Zachary Clark, global general manager for Uber Health. Twenty-eight states have approved Uber Health for use in their Medicaid programs, accounting for 78% of members enrolled in Medicaid in those states.
Some experts are worried about the proposed cuts’ impact on dual-eligible populations. David Slusky, an economics professor at the University of Kansas, said elderly consumers without Medigap or Medicare Advantage insurance could forgo care after they’ve become ineligible for Medicaid.
“Decreased insurance coverage is probably going to reduce ride-sharing use because fewer people are not going to have the appointment covered so they’ll decide to forgo care and decide to not go,” Slusky said. “They’ll also have fewer financial resources without Medicaid and will have to cut back on everything include ride-shares.”