For Immediate Release: June 25, 2025
Contact: Renee Alves, (559)-916-5939
Charleston, WV— The U.S. Senate is currently considering a budget reconciliation package that includes historically deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Medicaid is critical for West Virginians’ health and well-being, allowing hundreds of thousands of people across the state to access health care services. Similarly, SNAP provides food assistance to hundreds of thousands of West Virginians, serving as the state’s most powerful anti-hunger program. The drastic cuts to these two essential programs are being proposed, in part, to afford considerable tax breaks for corporations and the nation’s wealthiest households. The WVCBP joined over 20 organizations from across the Mountain State in sending the following statement to Senators Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito, urging them to reject any bill that would force West Virginians to bear the costs of tax breaks for the wealthy via cuts to Medicaid and SNAP:
Dear Senator:
The undersigned organizations represent tens of thousands of West Virginians who will be negatively impacted by the reconciliation package currently being considered in the U.S. Senate. West Virginians have the most to lose and the least to gain from this package, with a significant portion of our population and economy reliant on Medicaid and SNAP, while we have few ultra-wealthy households.
This package makes the largest cuts in history to basic needs programs like Medicaid and SNAP food assistance (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). It would result in record numbers of people losing the health care and food assistance that they depend on to take care of themselves and their families, shift massive costs onto the state budget, and put the nation’s economic future at risk by adding trillions to the debt. Furthermore, multiple non-partisan analyses affirm this package will leave lower-income households worse off while at the same time making the top 10% of households even richer.
We urge you to reject the Senate reconciliation package as it stands and take the time needed to craft a thoughtful package that protects West Virginians, our health care and food infrastructure, and our broader economy.
The Senate budget package raises the cost of health coverage and strips coverage from millions of Americans who currently have it. The bill’s failure to renew tax credits for people who purchase Affordable Care Act coverage will strip coverage from thousands in West Virginia, increasing the number of uninsured people by 18 percent and raising costs by more than 141 percent for some households. This will cause an estimated 15,000 West Virginians to give up their health coverage, no longer able to afford the skyrocketing monthly premiums.
Tens of thousands who gained coverage in West Virginia under the Medicaid expansion will also lose coverage– most not because they are ineligible– but because of increased red tape and bureaucracy under new “work reporting requirement” rules. States that have implemented similar policies show no increases in employment but many eligible people lose coverage, with an estimated 50,000– 110,000 West Virginians expected to lose Medicaid under new regulatory red tape, despite the vast majority of West Virginians on Medicaid already working or eligible for an exemption category.
The nearly $800 billion in Medicaid cuts in the legislation would devastate people who rely on Medicaid for basic coverage and services like substance use treatment, behavioral health, home-based long-term care, and nursing home services. The American Hospital Association affirms that the bill’s provisions would have serious consequences for health care providers, including rural hospitals, which would be forced to reduce services, cut staff, and, in some cases, close their doors. That would affect not just people on Medicaid but everyone who relies on those providers. Enacting these barriers would also undermine the state’s historic reduction in overdose deaths, enacting barriers to treatment and recovery for West Virginians with substance use disorder.
West Virginia’s state budget would face tremendous challenges as a result of the growing number of uninsured combined with the array of new burdens related to other federal cuts in the reconciliation package. The bill’s changes to SNAP are unprecedented. Not only does the legislation cut a third of the program’s funding, it would for the first time shift costs to states to backfill the federal cuts. Under the current provisions, 11 million people–including children and seniors–are at risk of losing food assistance at a time when the price of food is rising faster than inflation. Right here in West Virginia, more than 80,000 residents, or 1 in 3 SNAP recipients, would be at risk of losing food assistance under these policies. That includes children in households where parents would lose food assistance as well as veterans and other vulnerable adults.
Many children live in working class households, with parents in blue-collar jobs or low-wage industries that do not earn enough to keep up with the cost of housing, transportation, healthcare and food. Twice as many children as adults–nearly 45% of kids–rely on Medicaid, SNAP, or both. Three out of four children who rely on Medicaid for health care or SNAP for food have non-college-educated parents or caregivers in the workforce.
We urge you and your Senate colleagues to reject this reconciliation package and instead put forward legislation that puts working families, state budgets, and an economy that works for everyone ahead of tax benefits for the wealthy and corporations.
Sincerely,
ACLU-WV Charleston
WV NAACP
Congregation of St. Joseph
Fayette Fair Share PAC
Mountain State Justice
National Rural Social Work Caucus
Physicians for a National Health Program, West Virginia Chapter
Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia
Rise Up WV
Stone Action Group
Sunset Berry Farm
TEAM for West Virginia Children
Unitarian Universalist Congregation Charleston, WV
Veterans Mutual Aid
Welch Charge of the United Methodist Church
Wellspring of Greenbrier, Inc.
West Virginia Association for Young Children
West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy
West Virginia Faith Collective
West Virginians for Affordable Healthcare
West Virginia Citizen Action Group
West Virginia National Organization for Women
West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign
You can access the full letter here.
