Health care, food cuts won’t only hurt Ohio’s poor, but the entire economy, study says
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Advocates see damage in federal tax cut bill
Advocates for low-income southeast Ohioans see red tape, lost coverage and economic damage in the federal tax cut bill. The bill would add new requirements to SNAP and Medicaid and shift some costs onto states. Advocates think enrollment in both programs will go down, not because of waste or fraud, but because low- income people can’t navigate the mass of bureaucratic red tape that will ensue. They also warn the bill could have ripple effects beyond low- Income people themselves, as local businesses rely on that revenue stream and could be hit hard by the bill.. The House of Representatives passed its version of the major domestic policy bill now moving through Congress. The Senate is expected to vote on its own version later in the week. It would be the first major overhaul of the federal budget since the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion was signed into law. The measure would also change how often the government assesses people for Medicaid eligibility. It is expected the Senate will vote on the bill later this week.
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — On the day the House of Representatives passed its version of the major domestic policy bill now moving through Congress, freshman GOP U.S. Rep. David Taylor sent out a press release explaining his support of the federal tax cut bill.
“Today, I was proud to vote in support of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, which will cut rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in critical government programs so they are protected for vulnerable Americans who need them for generations to come. Republicans are the ones making the Trump tax cuts permanent, defending Medicaid, and protecting SNAP,” wrote Taylor, whose district includes most of southern Ohio.
But people who work in southeast Ohio’s healthcare and emergency food systems see the tax cut bill differently. It would add new requirements to SNAP and Medicaid and shift some costs onto states, potentially putting a strain on local administrators who have more rules to follow and fewer resources to do so. Advocates think enrollment in both programs will go down — not because of waste or fraud, but because low-income people can’t navigate the mass of bureaucratic red tape that will ensue.
They also warn the bill could have ripple effects beyond low-income people themselves. SNAP and Medicaid enrollees spend their benefits at local healthcare providers and grocery stores. Those businesses rely on that revenue to operate. If that revenue stream shrinks, so could the region’s economy.
“It has the potential to be catastrophic, which means it affects everyone, not just the people who are on Medicaid,” said Muskingum Valley Health Centers CEO Dan Atkinson.
Rose Frech of Integrated Services for Behavioral Health said the bill would reduce Medicaid enrollment in two ways. The first is the addition of work requirements for anyone insured under the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.
“Folks … would be required to participate in work, work training, school, volunteer work, something like that, for 80 hours per month in order to maintain their Medicaid coverage,” Frech said.
The second change involves how often the government assesses people for Medicaid eligibility.
“Right now, in Ohio, generally folks have to be reassessed for eligibility every year,” Frech said. “And this could shift that to every six months.”
For someone worried about waste, fraud and abuse, the idea that these new rules would cut enrollment may seem like proof they will root out bad actors. But Frech has a different prediction: Low-income people will lose coverage, not because they’re freeloading, but because the red tape just becomes too much.
Frech pointed to data from Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirements to support her concerns. A 2025 study from the Urban Institute has found those requirements did nothing to boost employment. The study’s authors argued implementing national work requirements “would worsen health outcomes and strains on medical systems.”
“If you’ve ever had a difficult time in your life, where maybe you’re struggling with your own mental health or you’re facing a lot of stress, maybe finances are tough — those are the times when it’s the hardest to navigate really complex bureaucratic processes,” Frech said. “You just don’t have the capacity or the bandwidth to do it.”
Atkinson concurred.
“These are folks that don’t necessarily have the means to go somewhere, to be able to volunteer or to be able to work,” he said. “If you’re battling a significant chronic disease and you have very limited to no resources, adding extra requirements to maintain your health insurance coverage is probably not going to be feasible for you.”
Frech said both Medicaid and SNAP are already hard to navigate.
“We do this stuff all the time, right? We help people fill out SNAP applications. We help people fill out Medicaid applications,” she said.
Work requirements will make this paperwork even more cumbersome. The same goes for twice-yearly eligibility screenings. For people struggling to get by — by definition, the people who tend to use Medicaid — it can be overwhelming.
Frech said this could hit southeast Ohio especially hard.
“We have a lot of folks who don’t have ready access to high-speed Internet. So if you need to get into a portal, perhaps to report something or upload a document, that can be really tricky to do. If you need to drop a piece of paper off at a local Job and Family Services agency and you live in one of our many communities where we don’t have access to public transportation, that’s a barrier,” Frech said.
Atkinson said if these individuals drop out of Medicaid, they won’t be the only ones feeling the impact. Their health insurance is Muskingum Valley Health Centers’ revenue. Take some of that revenue away, Atkinson said, and MVHC may have to scale down or end some of its programs — not just for Medicaid recipients, but for everyone in its coverage area.
That includes dental services; mobile health clinics, which Atkinson said are critical for reaching people in remote locations; addiction services; and transportation, which can be a major barrier for low-income people in a region with little to no public transit. At some point, staff reductions may also become necessary.
Frech said Integrated Services may also have to consider reductions in force if the changes become law. At the same time, it’s hard for the organization to know ahead of time exactly how much revenue it will lose until people actually start dropping out.
One silver lining for Frech: The House’s bill does not reduce the actual federal cost share for Medicaid. That matters because of an Ohio proposal to end Medicaid expansion in the state if that cost share changes. As things stand now, the proposal would not take effect.
Eva Bloom of HAPCAP said proposed work requirements for SNAP would have the same drawbacks as those for Medicaid: more paperwork for program administrators and more opportunities for low-income people to slip through the cracks. But SNAP is also facing another change Bloom said could make things worse.
“What they’re doing with SNAP is really a complete restructuring of the way the program works. So they’re cutting the federal spending on the program, and they’re shifting that to states,” Bloom said.
Right now, the federal government provides all the money that goes on SNAP enrollees’ EBT cards — that’s the money they use to buy groceries. Under the House bill, states would have to pay between 5% and 25% of that themselves. States would also have to pay 75% of the administrative costs — up from 50% today.
“We … have been paying a lot of attention to the operational budget that’s currently being discussed in Columbus, and we are hearing from (state legislators) that the budget is really tight, there’s not room for additional support,” Bloom said.
That likely means SNAP just gets less money, period: less money on EBT cards, and less money for administrators dealing with much more paperwork. That’s concerning to Bloom, who said there are already issues with documents being lost in the system.
“(People) are actually, in most cases, walking into an office to get a receipt for that paperwork” so they can later prove they filed it, Bloom said. Otherwise “their benefits could be jeopardized, even though they’ve done everything correctly.”
Taken together, Bloom said, the changes to SNAP and Medicaid could have lifelong consequences, especially for young southeast Ohioans.
“We’re not providing them with food for their bodies to develop, for their minds to develop, for them to be able to focus in school. We’re not providing them with healthcare, so they may have conditions that aren’t addressed,” Bloom said. “This is really just making what is really hard for children and residents of our region … just so much harder.”
WOUB reached out to Reps. David Taylor and Troy Balderson for comment and did not receive a response.
Section 8 Under Trump: How Policy Uncertainty Is Affecting Affordable Housing
The Office of Budget Management issued a memo freezing all federal funding and grant payments. Tenants in the Housing Choice Voucher program didn’t know whether their rents would get paid on Feb. 1. A few clients even came into the office, visibly agitated, “coming across as very angry and sure that they were going to be homeless,” an official says. The White House rescinded the memo on Jan. 29 following a public uproar, but not before upending a sense of stability for many of the most vulnerable residents. The original freeze memo is more than a month in the past, the federal government paid March’s Section 8 rents on time, and no similar broad-brush funding freezes appear to be on the horizon, says Katie Goldstein, director of housing and health care campaigns at Center for Popular Democracy. “The wild card here is [Elon Musk] got access to our Social Security accounts,’ Goldstein says. ‘Oh, there’’ she adds.
“Once that news came out, it was like an earthquake for so many of our folks, many of whom have come to us out of homelessness,” she says. “The fear they had of finally getting to a stable place and then having the earth kind of shake beneath their feet again—we saw that play out in anxiety behaviors that were just heartbreaking.”
Watson is talking about the memo issued by the Office of Budget Management freezing all federal funding and grant payments. Since the freeze was announced just three days before rents are typically due, tenants in the Housing Choice Voucher program didn’t know whether their rents would get paid on Feb. 1. Tenants in the voucher program (also known as Section 8) are responsible for paying 30 percent of their income toward the monthly rent; the federal government pays the balance.
The White House rescinded the memo on Jan. 29 following a public uproar (and specifically excluded Section 8 verbally prior to rescission), but not before upending a sense of stability for many of the most vulnerable residents. BCACHA administers housing for 2,600-plus clients—many struggle with long-term housing instability and severe, persistent mental health issues, Watson says. BCACHA staff immediately received a barrage of calls when the memo was published. A few clients even came into the office, visibly agitated, “coming across as very angry and sure that they were going to be homeless,” she says. “[One client] had a total meltdown, crying, yelling, screaming. And a number of people were just calling in saying, ‘What’s going to happen on the first? What do I do?’”
Norma-Lee Huffman, a leader at housing justice nonprofit Arkansas Community Organizations, understands being gripped by panic at the threat of potentially becoming homeless again. She’s been there, though not for quite some time. Huffman and her son both receive Medicaid assistance. Their living costs are supplemented by a Section 8 voucher. Huffman says the memo traumatized renters, especially those receiving supplemental support.
“I am a permanently disabled single mother, and I unfortunately have to depend on government assistance for myself and my son,” she says. “When they say they’re going to freeze the government and hold back assistance, there’s that [question]: Is the whole department eventually going to go away?”
Tenants are rightly concerned, says Katie Goldstein, director of housing and health care campaigns at Center for Popular Democracy, a network of economic and racial justice organizations—especially considering what’s called for in Project 2025, a federal policy blueprint created by legacy conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. “It seems like they’re following that playbook pretty aggressively,” Goldstein says.
“It’s definitely stressful—so stressful,” Huffman says. “I know I’m dealing with it as best as I can, but there’s millions of other people dealing with it in their own way . . . and it’s stressing them out to where they end up in the hospital because it’s too much.”
The original freeze memo is more than a month in the past, the federal government paid March’s Section 8 rents on time, and no similar broad-brush funding freezes appear to be on the horizon. Nonetheless, given the cuts happening to both grants and staff in other program offices in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), uncertainty and worry continue to ripple through the affordable housing world. Tenants on housing assistance are worried their services will be cut. Landlords with Section 8 tenants worry they won’t get paid. Public housing authorities (PHAs) don’t know if they’ll be able to pay their clients’ rent, their vendors’ invoices, or their employees’ payroll. What’s going to happen in the months to come? What lasting, unseen damage has already been done, and what crucial processes in HUD and other federal departments will the so-called Department of Government Efficiency decimate next?
“The wild card here is [Elon] Musk. Now that he’s got access to our Social Security accounts, you can see him [saying], ‘Oh, there’s waste, fraud, and abuse; let’s cut Social Security,’” says Michael Kane, a longtime tenant activist, director at Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants, and current chair of the Leaders and Organizers for Tenant Empowerment (LOFTE) Network. “[President Donald J. Trump] is in a position to cut entitlements like Social Security under some pretext, so that’s what we have to watch. I think the dynamic on Capitol Hill in March and April is going to be critical to how tenants fare in this. We have to watch it very carefully and be prepared.”
Tenants like Huffman are watching it carefully—and feeling it acutely. “I’m already having to pay out of pocket for things I’ve never had to pay out of pocket for before,” she says. “We are doing the best we can to help these people that have been cut off, that are limited on what they can pay for because of their Medicaid being cut, or Medicaid not wanting to pay as much as they have before.”
As the Trump administration continues to mercilessly gut federal agencies and wantonly fire essential career civil servants at the HUD, many of the effects are obvious. Others aren’t as visible, and some are likely still unknown. But everyone is on edge, scrambling to prepare for the next attack. Amid the uncertainty and fear, subsidized housing tenants, landlords, and PHAs all say they’re doing their best to brace for additional, and potentially more severe, shakeups in the months and years to come.
PHAs and the “Bank of HUD”
The problem is that having no access to your own, already-approved funds is intimidating—especially when the “bank of HUD” goes entirely offline unexpectedly (and during business hours). But that’s what happened at BCACHA and thousands of other PHAs on Jan. 29.
Housing authorities keep very little of their money in accessible bank accounts, thanks to HUD’s “cash management” rules, which require HUD to control federal money “to ensure PHAs do not receive federal funds before they are needed.” Officially it’s the Line of Credit Control System, or LOCCS, but Michael D. Webb, senior policy analyst at the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA) and others call it “the bank of HUD.” Even if a PHA has been able to sock away federal funds for emergencies, they’re still only accessible through HUD’s online payment system—the one that locked PHAs out during the funding freeze.
“Even if a housing authority has reserves, the vast majority of those reserves are held in accounts that HUD controls. They’re held in the ‘bank of HUD,’” Webb says. “If you want to get access to those reserves—that money that you’ve saved over the years—you still have to go through HUD’s payment system to draw that money down.”
The obvious immediate side effect of a LOCCS lockout would be that Section 8 recipients’ government-funded portion of the rent wouldn’t get paid. Some housing authorities, like Washington state’s Vancouver Housing Authority, could have footed the bill for a single month of missed payments, but if federal funding were shut off for long enough that contractor bills or monthly debt installments were missed entirely, the secondary effects would reverberate through PHA offices.
Losing Landlords
As a PHA administering local Housing Choice Voucher program payments, you also don’t want to have a reputation for stiffing your landlords. That’s especially true in places without source-of-income protections, allowing landlords to legally refuse to rent to Section 8 voucher holders. Getting that guaranteed, on-time rent payment every month is “a huge draw” for landlords who participate in the voucher program, Webb says. “So any threat that those payments can be interrupted or delayed would result in dramatic decreases in landlords willing to participate in the voucher program,” he says. “Because that really is the selling point.”
LOFTE’s Kane agrees with Webb. “Even a two-day pause is going to frighten landlords away,” he says.
Even a two-day pause is going to frighten landlords away [from the Section 8 program].” Michael Kane, Leaders and Organizers for Tenant Empowerment Network
Nicole Upano, assistant vice president of housing policy and regulatory affairs at the National Apartment Association (NAA), agrees that landlords have been leaving the Section 8 program in droves, but did not report any departures due to the recent funding freeze. She instead said “programmatic barriers” are the main reason landlords choose not to participate (where they’re able to opt out). Upano said that due to the “rapidly evolving” situation at the federal level, NAA is “trying to figure out how the impacts at the federal level impacts what happens with PHAs and how they administer the program.” She also says NAA is concerned about the “over-regulation of the [Housing Choice Voucher] program” and hopes that HUD under the current leadership will be open to exploring ways to reduce administrative, inspection, and other burdens on participating landlords.
“You’ve got some affordable housing providers who are dedicated to serving these communities,” she says. “They have dedicated employees on staff to do compliance and navigate the thousands of PHAs who administer the program differently all across the country.”
When the freeze took effect, many of PHADA’s member leaders contacted many of their participating landlords to request they not take action against tenants for late payments, Webb says. (It’s worth noting that tenants cannot be evicted if the government fails to pay its portion of the rent.) Unfortunately, landlord participation going forward isn’t something PHAs can control, and many landlords who participate in the voucher program don’t have much financial wiggle room.
“A lot of the landlords in the voucher program, they’ve got fewer than 10 units. They’re renting to voucher holders because, yes, it is a guaranteed payment—but they feel like they’re doing some good for the community,” Webb says. “So, any actions that drive landlord participation down are going to result in helping fewer families.”
The number of families receiving HUD help could take a hit when Congress votes on legislation to fund the federal government through the end of September if HUD funding stays at current levels, Kane says, which seems likely. “Section 8 [funding] has to go up for inflation to just take care of the same number of people,” he says. “So if the dollar amount is frozen, that’s a cut in the number of people served.”
Losing Staff = Losing Institutional Knowledge
Late or missed rent payments and diminished landlord participation are serious looming threats that housing agencies are trying to anticipate and prepare for, but they’re just two on a long list of current PHA concerns. Another one is the delays and uncertainty that will come from the loss of experienced HUD staff as mass terminations proceed. Gutting HUD’s already-shorthanded employee base could generate a wait-time quagmire for PHAs as they both administer existing affordable housing and work on development projects, where the effects could be catastrophic, Andy Silver, executive director of Washington state’s Vancouver Housing Authority warns.
“With all real estate development, there’s inherent risk—you’re buying land while you’re applying for funding, you don’t know what rents are going to look like, you don’t know what interest rates are going to do. You hope that there’s as much certainty and stability as possible, because that allows you to inform decisions about risk and keep your agency stable over time,” he says. “One of the most challenging things of the moment is just so much uncertainty over such a broad area of things that it’s very difficult to make informed decisions about calculated risk.” Without knowing what staffing levels at HUD will look like, whether the administration will slash HUD’s budget, or even if another surprise funding freeze is coming, “it just it really makes it difficult to move forward with our mandate of doing whatever we can to produce more and more affordable housing,” Silver says.
PHADA’s members have similar concerns, especially about HUD’s future staffing levels: losing more employees in the long understaffed department would further slow down administration of local projects, Webb says. And if HUD staffers are laid off or quit en masse, the loss of institutional knowledge could kneecap affordable housing providers, and the repercussions could be felt for years, Webb warns. “We are certainly concerned that any of those staff members could leave,” he says, “particularly in an environment where staffing for the HUD headquarters is so low, when they have decades of institutional knowledge.”
Those disruptions to payments could negatively impact a housing authority’s ability to respond to health and safety issues . . .” Michael D. Webb, Public Housing Authorities Directors Association
“On the public housing side, those disruptions to payments could negatively impact a housing authority’s ability to respond to health and safety issues—if a boiler goes out in a public housing building, do you have the money there to pay a contractor to fix it?” Webb explains. “It can even result in you stiffing your local contractors for work that’s already ongoing if you can’t have access to payments. And if you’re in a small town and there’s only X number of contractors available to you, you don’t want to have a reputation for stiffing your contractors.”
In Idaho, Watson worries that HUD staffing cuts could leave BCACHA legal counsel responsible for making decisions that could come back to haunt the housing authority years down the road. BCACHA leans heavily on HUD expertise when administering complicated deals, such as when a building that’s been kept affordable by the LIHTC (low income housing tax credit) program is losing its affordability protections. Watson calls HUD to make sure they’re following the rules when setting rents, for example. Absent HUD’s guidance, they must decide internally and hope they’re interpreting the rules correctly.
“So it makes us live in a much more vulnerable space of either not being able to make decisions that have repercussions,” she says, “or making the decisions we think are the best ones only to have that be pointed to as an ineptitude.”
Editor’s note: This story has been changed to identify Michael Kane as the current director at Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants.
5 reasons federal cuts are hitting veterans especially hard
The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut 83,000 jobs, slashing employment by over 17 percent. One-quarter of the VA’s 482,000 employees are veterans. The cuts come at a time when veterans’ health care needs are increasing. Staff shortages have led to long wait times for care, with some VA clinics still so understaffed that they are unable to take new patients for primary care or mental health needs. The VA Crisis Line, which both the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services oversee, is estimated to be losing employees to staffing shortages. An average of 176 veteran suicides per day remains the second-leading cause of death among veterans under 45 years old, according to the VCLCL. Current data is not publicly available, but staff report that 60,000 calls a month are given to the service, given that staff are given remote work options, such as working from home or on the phone. The current data shows that the average number of veteran suicides is 176 per day.
The department known as the VA manages and directly provides comprehensive services for veterans. Those services include health care, short- and long-term housing options, life insurance, pensions, education stipends, and assistance in jails and courts. The VA also engages in pathbreaking public health research. One-quarter of the VA’s 482,000 employees are veterans.
READ MORE: 5 facts about the federal workforce that may surprise you
For the past month, the Trump administration has been cutting federal spending, causing numerous hardships for government employees, the agencies they work for and the people they serve.
But veterans are among those hardest hit, and the impact goes well beyond job loss.
My research on veterans in the criminal legal system illustrates the stark challenges that service members already face as they integrate back into civilian life.
Trump’s budget cuts will make this process only harder. Here are five reasons why.
1. Eroding the federal workforce
Federal law requires employers to give veterans an advantage in hiring over people who have not served in the military.
Under the 1944 Veterans Preference Act, employers should hire veterans over other candidates and retain veterans over other employees during layoffs. The idea is to compensate for the economic loss of serving in the military and acknowledge the government’s obligation, especially, to support disabled veterans.
READ MORE: Veterans say they feel betrayed after firing from federal jobs, including some who voted for Trump
Due to this veterans preference, nearly 30 percent of federal workers are veterans, half of whom are disabled. This means that veterans, who make up 6.1 percent of the U.S. population, are disproportionately affected by federal worker cuts.
One estimate is that of the 38,000 federal employees fired in the first five weeks of the Trump administration, 6,000 are veterans.
2. Gutting VA health care
Cuts to the federal workforce are also affecting medical care for veterans. The Veterans Health Administration workforce constitutes 90 percent of the VA’s 482,000 workers, so cuts to VA workers mean cuts to health care.
These cuts come at a time when veterans’ health care needs are increasing. The VA enrolled 400,000 veterans in its benefits system from March 2023 through March 2024, 30 percent more than the prior year. It also expanded eligibility for former service members to receive VA health care. Trump’s cuts will make it more difficult for the VA to provide health care for these newly eligible veterans.
These cuts roll back President Joe Biden’s investment in the VA to address long-standing staffing problems. The Office of Inspector General’s 2024 report on VA staffing shortages reveals that 137 of 139 VA health centers nationwide report a severe staffing shortage in at least one area, particularly nursing and psychology.
Staff shortages have led to long wait times for care. These wait times vary from days to months, with some VA clinics still so understaffed that they are unable to take new patients for primary care or mental health needs. Staff increases over the past few years shortened wait times while providing care to more veterans.
In 2024, the VA said it was working hard to fill its 66,000 vacancies, aiming to improve health care for the more than 9 million veterans it serves.
Now, just one year later, the VA faces the loss of 83,000 jobs. These cuts may contribute to fundamental changes in VA health care. Rather than help veterans directly, the VA may pay for veterans to seek medical care outside the VA system, leading to higher costs and lower quality.
Other Trump directives will prevent gender-affirming care to veterans. Veterans with diagnoses related to gender identity increased from 2,513 to 10,457 between 2011 to 2021.
3. Destaffing the suicide hotline
In Trump’s cuts to social services, the country’s Veterans Crisis Line, which both the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services oversee, is losing employees to layoffs, despite existing staffing shortages. An estimated 800 to 900 of the 1,130 crisis-line workers have always worked remotely, so ending remote work options will further undermine staffing.
Current data shows an average of 17.6 veteran suicides per day. Suicide remains the second-leading cause of death among veterans under 45 years old. Current VCL caller data is not publicly available, but staff report that the service fields 60,000 calls a month.
In the past, the VA reported nearly 3 million calls between 2009 and 2017, which led to 82,000 emergency dispatches to prevent veterans from harming themselves. The VA steadily increased crisis-line staffing to address concerns that, given the volume of calls, veterans were not receiving help in a timely manner.
Fewer staff, already suffering from burnout, undermines this work, as callers already at high risk for suicide will face longer wait times and improper care.
The first Trump administration made veteran suicide prevention a policy priority; its latest moves impede this goal.
4. Losing research
The VA’s investment in research, about $916 million a year, has contributed to a comprehensive understanding of veterans’ well-being, meaning the government can target aid toward those in need.
VA research has also helped spark major medical breakthroughs on the link between smoking and cancer, prompting the surgeon general to put warnings on cigarettes, and the most widely used method to measure and treat prostate cancer.
VA research and data are instrumental in the social sciences. There are millions of veterans who come from diverse sociodemographic groups, and social science researchers are able to track them over time.
With overall budget cuts at the VA and the federal workforce reduction, at least 350 VA researchers will likely lose their jobs. That, along with a Trump directive to stop research on how poverty and race shape veteran health outcomes, will undermine not only the general well-being of veterans but also the entire medical establishment’s knowledge about substance use, mental health and deeper insights that VA research can provide on prevention and treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease.
5. Looming cuts to other benefits
Numerous reports indicate that Republicans in Congress want to reduce so-called entitlements, including food stamps and Medicaid, the health insurance for the country’s poorest citizens.
Cutting Medicaid would hurt veterans’ health, too, because not all veterans have access to federally funded health care through the VA, for a variety of reasons. Estimates show that over the past decade nearly 10 percent of veterans use Medicaid for at least some of their health care benefits, and 40 percent of those veterans rely exclusively on Medicaid for all their health care.
Further, approximately 400,000 veterans are uninsured. Given their income, half of these uninsured veterans should be eligible for Medicaid, as long as looming cuts don’t change eligibility requirements.
In addition, 1.2 million veterans received aid through the federally funded supplemental nutritional access program, or SNAP. Working-age veterans face an elevated risk of experiencing food insecurity compared to their nonveteran peers.
Veterans are still overrepresented among the homeless population. Many do not have financial flexibility to make up for these cuts.
Making good on a promise
All Americans are affected by Trump’s federal funding cuts. But as my research shows, the budget-slashing looks to be especially hard on those who served in the military.
The media and political blowback against Trump’s cuts has already begun. Negatively impacted veterans are gaining increasing visibility. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have begun calling on the Department of Defense to prioritize retaining and rehiring veterans.
The first Trump administration committed to expanding services for veterans. Now, it’s executing a stark policy reversal with acute consequences for the very same veterans the U.S. government promised to protect and serve since the country’s founding.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.