The U.S. Senate is considering a sweeping budget reconciliation bill that would enact the deepest cuts in history to Medicaid and SNAP—programs that hundreds of thousands of West Virginians rely on for health care, food, and economic security.
These cuts would disproportionately impact families, seniors, and children in our state, threatening access to health care, food assistance, and other essential services—all to finance tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. These cuts would harm our economy, cost hard-working West Virginians their jobs, and worsen food and health care deserts in the state.
Take Action Today: Use our form to contact West Virginia’s U.S. Senators, Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, and tell them to say NO to a budget package that cuts Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal programs that help people meet their basic needs.
Our elected officials must prioritize the well-being of West Virginians, not corporate interests and tax breaks for billionaires. Good policy takes time- they need to go back to the drawing board and craft a package that doesn’t require everyday West Virginians to bear the cost of tax breaks for the nation’s wealthiest households.
You can also contact your Senators by phone at the following numbers:
Read this press release from our colleagues at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to learn how the Senate Republican leaders’ reconciliation proposals double down on harmful elements of the House bill.
Check out our recent videos to learn more about how cuts to SNAP and Medicaid would harm West Virginians.
This past Tuesday, the WVCBP joined local and state health care providers, food banks, and advocacy organizations at a press conference to call on Senators Capito and Justice to protect vital Medicaid and SNAP services for Mountaineers ahead of a pending budget vote in the Senate. A recent article provides more detail about what’s at stake. Excerpt below:
As the U.S. Senate continues to debate the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill, several West Virginia organizations came together Tuesday to ask their representatives not to support cuts to health care and food assistance programs.
“Right now, as we stand here on the West Side of Charleston, West Virginia, in Washington, D.C., they are making cruel calculations,” said Lida Shepherd, a representative of the American Friends Service Committee, which helped host the event. “How big of a handout of our tax dollars can be given to the wealthiest families and corporations … [while] taking SNAP and Medicaid away from all of us? Will we let them get away with playing political chess with our lives? No.”
The event — held at a Cabin Creek Health Systems clinic — was also sponsored by Catholic Charities of West Virginia, the American Cancer Society, Facing Hunger Food Bank, Protect Our Care, West Virginians for Affordable Health Care and the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, among other groups.
The U.S. House of Representatives last month narrowly passed a version of the bill that would cut Medicaid by more than $700 billion — the largest in the program’s history. The bill would impose work reporting requirements and cause roughly 15 million people to lose their health care coverage over the next few years, analysts say.
The Senate version of the bill would cut Medicaid even more and expand the proposed work requirements for the program.
The House’s legislation would also cut $300 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through 2034 and push some of the costs of SNAP benefits to states for the first time.
In the Senate version of the bill, states would pay between 5 and 15% of the food benefits program beginning in 2028, depending on their payment error rate. The cost shift could put West Virginia on the hook for up to $84 million a year.
“This bill is a cruel assault on veterans, on people with disabilities, on our health care sector, on people who struggle with food insecurity, and on working families who deserve health care and food as much as anyone else in this country,” Shepherd said.
About one in three West Virginia residents relies on Medicaid for their health care coverage. More than 277,000 — or one in six — West Virginia residents get food assistance from the SNAP program.
Amber Crist is CEO of Cabin Creek Health Systems, a federally qualified health center. Last year, the network of clinics treated 20,000 patients, including 7,000 Medicaid recipients.
Speaking at the news conference, Crist said nearly two thirds of West Virginians on Medicaid are already working, and another 29% are caregivers, students or have disabilities that keep them from working.
“These facts don’t demonstrate fraud, waste and abuse…These are signs of people doing their best, often under incredibly difficult circumstances,” Crist said.
Mariah Plante is a Wyoming County resident who cares for her brother who has autism, is legally blind and is nonverbal. Medicaid provides her brother’s medical care, eyeglasses, behavioral support, prescriptions and access to specialists that the family could never afford on their own, she said.
“Most importantly, Medicaid allows for us to care for Matt at home, where he’s loved, not in a facility,” Plante said. “Without it, families like ours will be forced to make heartbreaking choices. Nobody wants to put their loved one into a place like that where the staff is too often overworked, underpaid and undertrained in how to manage the needs and nuances of caring for people who cannot care for themselves.”
Sherri McKinney is vice president of the Service Employees International Union District 1199, which represents more than 24,000 health care workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. She said that proposed Medicaid cuts would decimate health care jobs. The state is on the verge of a “health care crisis” if Congress goes through with the Medicaid cuts, she said.
“Let me be absolutely clear, cuts to Medicaid cuts our lifelines,” McKinney said. “In a state like ours in West Virginia, nearly one in three West Virginians relies on Medicaid. The consequences of federal cuts will not be measured in spreadsheets. They’ll be measured in lost jobs, closed clinics, struggling families, unnecessary suffering, and people will die.”
According to analysis from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in the legislation would cause the closure of rural hospitals around the country, including seven in West Virginia.
The proposed 30% cut to SNAP in the bill would cause about 84,000 people in West Virginia to lose their food benefits, Shepherd said.
Libby Booker, a food pantry operator and president of Women in the NAACP, spoke against cuts to SNAP.
“There’s so much need in our community, throughout our state, just for healthy foods,” Booker said. “When we have healthy food, we have healthy bodies.”
Booker said that, years ago when she was a single mother, she struggled to put healthy food on the table for her son.
“And now I see our government losing their hearts and turning on the citizens who sent them to represent us in office,” Booker said.
Read the full article.
While West Virginia’s overall employment growth has been stagnant over the past year, one area of the economy that has seen continued growth is the health care sector. In fact, while total nonfarm employment in the state has fallen by 6,000 jobs over the past decade, employment in the health care and social assistance sector has grown by 19,300 jobs.
In 2024, employment in the health care and social assistance sector accounted for 18.7 percent of total nonfarm employment in the state. That was the highest percentage in the country, well above the national average of 14.3 percent.
Health care is also a significant driver of employment at the local level throughout the Mountain State, in some counties reaching nearly 30 percent of total employment.
Notably, health care employers make up the top three employers in the state (WVU Medicine, Vandalia Health, and Marshall Health). In 48 of West Virginia’s 55 counties, a health care employer is in the top 10 employers.
With the health care sector being such a significant source of jobs and economic growth in West Virginia, proposed federal cuts to Medicaid represent a major threat to the state’s economy and its workers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” recently passed by the House of Representatives would cut Medicaid by more than $800 billion, the largest cut in the program’s history. And according to a study by the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research, just a $29 million federal cut and $10 million state cut to Medicaid in West Virginia would result in 520 lost jobs and a reduction of $49 million in overall annual economic output.
Not only would the proposed cuts to Medicaid result in 65,000 West Virginians losing health care coverage, but thousands of jobs and millions in GDP and state tax revenue throughout the state would be at risk. Our federal elected officials must prioritize the well-being of West Virginians and oppose any budget package that cuts Medicaid.
Read Sean’s full blog post to access the interactive charts.
West Virginia improved its overall child well-being ranking compared to last year, moving from 44th to 41st among the states according to the 2025 KIDS COUNT® Data Book, a 50-state report of recent data developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation analyzing how kids are faring in post-pandemic America. Each year, the Data Book presents national and state data from 16 indicators in four domains — economic well-being, education, health, and family and community factors — and ranks the states according to how children are faring overall.
Since 2019, seven of the 16 key indicators have improved nationwide, six have worsened and three have not changed. Positive national trends include declines in child poverty and in teen births, as well as increases in health insurance coverage and high school graduation rates.
The Data Book indicates that where a child lives matters for their health and quality of life. Geographic disparities around the country have persisted for years, shaped by differences in state and local policies, economic conditions, infrastructure, resources, neighborhood characteristics, and community investment.
In addition to ranking 41st overall, within the four domains West Virginia ranked 39th in economic well-being, 39th in health, 32nd in family and community context, and 45th in education according to the 2025 Data Book. This year’s report shows meaningful incremental progress in the well-being of children improving post-pandemic, but also that there is still more to do to invest in our children’s health, economic, and educational outcomes.
Because the 2025 Data Book compares well-being data with rates prior to the pandemic, it shows both continued recovery challenges and the fruits of positive policy interventions. While math and reading scores in West Virginia and nationwide are still reflecting post-pandemic recovery challenges, West Virginia has seen some of the largest improvements from the pandemic years in both categories. Regardless, there is still more work to do in reversing the trends identified in the 2024 Data Book, which highlighted the unprecedented learning loss during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and the toll of chronic absenteeism on academic performance.
The 2025 Data Book also highlights that 71% of West Virginia children ages three and four are not enrolled in school (child care, or preschool), the second-highest rate in the country. Meanwhile, 9% of West Virginia teens ages 16 to 19 are not attending school nor working, the second-highest rate nationwide. Both are likely a reflection of families still returning to post-pandemic normalcy.
“We are pleased to see West Virginia’s incremental child well-being progress in some key measures, including housing security, children insured, and declining teen birth rates. There is certainly more work to do to invest in our early childhood education and K-12 education systems, infant and maternal health, and other areas, and we look forward to working with state policymakers to continue building on our post-pandemic recovery,” says Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, West Virginia’s member of the Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT network.
West Virginia saw some positive trends in economic and health measures in the 2025 Data Book. Within the economic well-being domain, West Virginia saw reductions in the share of children living with parents who lack secure employment (30% in 2023) and in households with a high housing cost burden (19%, making WV the 2nd-best among all states on this indicator). The rate of children with health insurance held steady at 97%, while the rate of teen births significantly declined over the last decade (from 40 per 1,000 females aged 15-19 in 2013 to 18 per 1,000 in 2023). In all cases, federal economic policies related to helping households maintain health coverage and economic security alongside a strong economic recovery post-pandemic likely played key roles.
In its 36th year of publication, the KIDS COUNT® Data Book provides reliable statewide numbers to help leaders see where progress is being made, where greater support is needed, and which strategies are making a difference. The WVCBP and the Casey Foundation encourage policymakers, school leaders, and educators to unite in helping children and families succeed. We know what kids need to grow up healthy and connected: Strong schools, stable homes, nutritious food, meaningful relationships and opportunities to learn, play, and grow. Programs that meet these needs are smart investments, fostering long-term gains like employment and economic growth.
Access the 2025 KIDS COUNT Data Book.
Learn more in these recent articles reporting on the Data Book‘s release that feature insight from WVCBP executive director, Kelly Allen.
Public schools across the Mountain State have been working to overcome challenges including declining student enrollment, insufficient funding, and diversion of funding and resources to the Hope Scholarship. A recent article, including comment from WVCBP senior policy outreach director Seth DiStefano, provides insight into how the Hope Scholarship is negatively impacting Kanawha County public schools. Excerpt below:
Kanawha County teacher Summer Grose has seen changes in her school district since the Hope Scholarship came into play.
The scholarship provides funds for qualifying students to attend a school of their choice, whether public or private, and can also be used for homeschooling, But with that comes hardships for public schools like the one Grose teaches at.
“For the school system, it’s a significant drop in funds because they’re not getting that federal and local fund because the student’s not enrolled anymore,” Grose said. “So it’s a huge problem for public schools.”
A study from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy shows Kanawha County has the most students using the hope scholarship with 720 during the 2023-2024 school year. Senior Policy Outreach Director Seth DiStefano tells Eyewitness News:
“The Hope scholarship is a driving factor in lower public-school enrollments and the school closures plaguing Kanawha County,” he said. “What’s worse is the voucher, in most cases, does not cover full tuition at private schools, let alone the cost of transportation and school meals which are provided by Kanawha County Public Schools. These vouchers support wealthier families who could already afford private school tuition at the expense of kids from East Bank, Malden, Mary Ingles and other community public schools scheduled to close their doors.”
It was voted last year that these schools amongst others in Kanawha County would be closing their doors.
Read the full article.
As West Virginia coal miners confront unexpected layoffs, a deeper crisis is unfolding — the breakdown of the support systems that have long provided food, health care, and stability to working families across our state.
About 200 coal miners in Wyoming County were recently notified they would lose their jobs this August. In Logan County, 105 workers will be laid off by mid-July, with another 61 expected to lose their jobs by the end of June. And in Boone County, 66 more miners face job loss by early December.
These numbers aren’t just statistics. They are families — neighbors — facing an uncertain future at the same time that federal SNAP and Medicaid programs are on the chopping block.
We invite you to “Coal, Cuts, and Consequences,” a powerful gathering to hear firsthand from miners directly impacted by these job losses and to examine how cuts to SNAP and Medicaid would deepen the economic and emotional toll on rural communities like ours.
The event will take place Wednesday, June 25 in Oceana, WV from 11am to 12pm. Register for free here.
School employees, parents, community members, and anyone who supports public education in West Virginia are welcome to join this Together for Public Schools Coalition webinar to learn more about school funding. Topics will include a closer look at the current school funding formula, challenges to school funding in our state, and ways to modernize the school funding formula to better support public schools.
The free webinar will take place Tuesday, July 1 at 6pm. You can register here.
One in three West Virginians currently rely on Medicaid, but proposed cuts to the program would significantly reduce access to this critical source of care. A recent article, featuring insight from WVCBP health and safety net policy analyst Rhonda Rogombe, provides further details. Excerpt below:
Doctors predict cuts could mean ‘life or death’
In a 215-214 vote, the House of Representatives advanced its budget bill last month. The Senate has yet to vote on the bill, though if the Senate passes a modified version of the bill in late June, the legislation would then have to go back to the House for another vote because both chambers must pass the exact same legislation.
Currently, Medicaid is one of the areas the bill targets for cuts, limiting access to the program.
Independent analyses project that West Virginia would be hit hard by deep cuts to Medicaid and food benefits for low-income people in the budget reconciliation bill passed by the House of Representatives to pay for tax cuts favoring the wealthy.
Between 56,000 and 88,000 fewer West Virginians would be enrolled in Medicaid in 2034 — 10-16% below Fiscal Year 2025 levels — if most of the major budget provisions become law, according to an analysis published by State Health and Value Strategies, a program of the health-focused philanthropic group Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy research group, projects a similar range of West Virginia Medicaid enrollment losses: 56,000 to 94,000, with a midpoint of 75,000 that would represent a 14% decline.
Barker described the current health care system as a systemic trap where people on assistance programs like Medicaid are caught in rigid income brackets, unable to fluidly transition out of poverty.
“You get stuck because … if you make this much, you get Medicaid, but if you make a little more, you can’t afford private insurance,” she said.
If those boundaries are even more limited, she theorizes more people will be stuck in poverty.
Barker further asserted that “taking these services away is going to force people to go without treatment” and that people “will have to choose between food or their medicine.”
In his previous practice, Dr. Joe Jarrell, a retired internal medicine specialist with 25 years of experience, including stints at Cabin Creek Health Systems and other Kanawha County locations, had already seen cases where patients chose basic necessities over medical care.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates a 10-year decrease in federal Medicaid spending for West Virginia, ranging from $4 billion to $7 billion if the House reconciliation bill becomes law.
CBO: 10.9M people could lose health insurance
Total cuts in Medicaid spending nationwide would reach $1.3 trillion or more under the House reconciliation bill, per the State Health & Value Strategies published analysis, with West Virginia losing $6.6 billion in the federal share of Medicaid expenses — a 13% drop — and $1.1 billion in the nonfederal share — a 9% downturn — from fiscal years 2025 to 2034.
The State Health & Value Strategies-published analysis warns that its estimates understate coverage losses and funding cuts, as it does not account for the proposed curtailment of states setting up new hospital provider taxes. This would cost states like West Virginia, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Ohio billions of dollars.
The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the House reconciliation bill on June 4, finding that bill provisions would result in 10.9 million people losing their health insurance. One day later, it released a projection that the bill would increase deficits from 2025 to 2034 by $2.4 trillion.
Dr. Kenneth Wright, a Charleston-based physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation, said the suggested Medicaid cuts would devastate West Virginia’s “broken” health care system. He explained that hospitals, which typically operate on narrow margins, would likely not survive such funding reductions.
“Some things [hospitals] do make a lot of money [but] a lot of things they do lose money,” Wright said. “So, if they didn’t have that money coming in, it would drive a lot of them to the point where they would, at the least, have to close necessary services, and some probably wouldn’t exist at all.”
Jarrell and his wife, Dr. Susan Westfall, a retired family care doctor in Charleston, both agreed.
All three physicians, who attended a rally in late May at the West Virginia Capitol in support of preserving Medicaid, warned that the economic impact would go far beyond health care. Hospital closures and cutbacks, they said, would cause job losses, shake local economies and worsen overall community health.
“In the United States, there are huge numbers of people — particularly here in West Virginia — [who] can’t afford to go to the doctor, or go to the hospital, or pay for the medicines that they need,” Wright said. “People in rural areas have to drive far enough the way it is, but it could literally mean the difference in life or death.”
Susan Westfall added, “After a while, if people are not getting care, then you’re taking care of sicker people, or you’re less likely to really be able to help them to regain their normal function and their health status.”
Work mandates ‘make people sicker’
In the past, Capito and Justice have indicated support for Medicaid work requirements, a significant component of the House reconciliation bill. Work requirements condition Medicaid eligibility for people aged 19-64 applying for coverage or enrolled through the Affordable Care Act expansion group — up to 138% of the federal poverty level — on working or participating in qualifying activities for at least 80 hours every month.
However, critics argue that Medicaid work requirements would significantly increase paperwork and complicate treatment compliance.
Rhonda Rogombé, a health and safety net policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said, “There is no evidence that shows that increasing barriers to health care access increases work.”
Instead, she said, we have evidence of the opposite.
“We’ve seen this in SNAP already, and we’ve seen this in Medicaid in other states, there is no connection between taking health care away, taking food away and increasing jobs numbers. Instead, it just makes people sicker. It limits their ability to access said jobs. When you take away somebody’s ability to take care of themselves, how are they going to work?”
Additionally, people in rural communities may face greater challenges in finding sustainable employment opportunities.
Jeannie Nottingham, a former Medicaid recipient who works as a care navigator at Cabin Creek Health Systems, helps people access services like Medicaid. In her work and personal experience, work requirements oust people who need help.
With the similar SNAP requirements already in place, Nottingham says her clients depend on food banks for food. But it isn’t because they are resisting work. Instead, she said, they face complex circumstances that aren’t always black and white.
“Just because they don’t receive disability benefits and are labeled as able to work, doesn’t mean that they can go out and get a job right then,” Nottingham said. Plus, she and Barker agree that rural areas have fewer job opportunities.
A recent Brookings Institution analysis also suggests proposed monthly work-hour requirements don’t align with the reality of service-sector jobs, which often have unpredictable schedules and pay. The analysis also found the definition of acceptable work effort imposed by policymakers penalizes working families from benefits for which they would otherwise be eligible.
Nearly two-thirds of 26.1 million Medicaid-covered adults already were working full-time or part-time in 2023, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
“A lot of people have misconceptions … that people don’t work for Medicaid,” Barker said. “I’ve worked the whole entire time I’ve had Medicaid.”
However, due to the commission-based nature of her past work in retail sales, her income would fluctuate.
The analysis said another 29% of Medicaid-covered adults were not working due to caregiving, illness or disability, or school attendance.
This is the case in Nottingham’s family. She said her daughter, who has a child with autism, would be unlikely to find dependable care for her child during work hours, which would jeopardize her access to insurance.
Work requirements would devastate people like those she helps in her care navigation role as well, particularly those who are unhoused or have complex health situations. She emphasized that just because someone isn’t officially labeled as disabled doesn’t mean they can easily work, as their situation can make it difficult to apply for disability, which she says is a complex process in itself.
And many rely on Medicaid for critical health care and prescription support. Without it, she said they will likely head to emergency rooms to get medication.
Medicaid is, Nottingham said, “what is keeping them alive.”
Bill expected to redistribute wealth to higher incomes
Republican leaders have set a July 4 deadline to pass the bill in both chambers of Congress and send it to the president for his signature, but the process could drag past that date.
Reps. Miller and Moore said President Donald Trump’s proposed budget bill would help families, but an analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model found that working-age households in the middle of income distribution would see an average lifetime reduction of $3,000 from the package, as they face a chance of needing spending programs that would be reduced.
Households most affected by the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — those in the bottom fifth of income brackets, would experience the largest losses under the House reconciliation package, averaging $28,000 for the working-age population, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis published last month.
In contrast, working-age households in the top fifth of income brackets would benefit from lower taxes, gaining $30,000 on average, per the analysis.
Read the full article.
