A call to action: Save SNAP and Medicaid

I’m sure many of us late­ly are either fol­low­ing or active­ly avoid­ing news of the fed­er­al bud­get. It’s been all-con­sum­ing for folks like me who work in food pol­i­cy, and con­fus­ing, even with the num­ber of experts around to answer my ques­tions. I’m con­cerned that peo­ple out­side of these cir­cles aren’t being told exact­ly what this bud­get has to do with them. Federal pol­i­cy is tough to get peo­ple engaged in because it feels so far away, but the dam­age to Kentucky and specif­i­cal­ly to Clark County could be over­whelm­ing. Congress is work­ing on some major bud­get cuts under the illu­sion of reduc­ing waste­ful spend­ing, so let’s look into what they con­sid­er “waste­ful.” Specifically, social safe­ty net pro­grams, which “pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port to peo­ple dur­ing times of eco­nom­ic hardship.” 

Congress is cur­rent­ly using a spe­cial leg­isla­tive process called “rec­on­cil­i­a­tion” to quick­ly advance high-pri­or­i­ty fis­cal leg­is­la­tion. Created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion allows a quick­er-than-usu­al process to pass cer­tain laws on tax­es, spend­ing, and nation­al debt. This bud­get process is intend­ed to be com­pli­cat­ed, but there are ways to sim­pli­fy what’s hap­pen­ing so we can all see what these deci­sions being made in DC have to do with Clark County, KY.

As Chuck Whitt shows in his sum­ma­ry of many sec­tions of the bill, it’s about our nation­al finances, but also so much more. Two of these pro­grams threat­ened by bud­get cuts or pro­gram changes are Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for­mer­ly known as food stamps). These are my biggest con­cerns. Medicaid and SNAP are fed­er­al mon­ey that comes into our local econ­o­my, spent on busi­ness­es in Clark County while pro­vid­ing nec­es­sary food and health­care for our neigh­bors (and also for me pri­or to this job). I’ve used SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC. I know the com­pli­ca­tions and the frus­tra­tions of the pro­grams. I real­ize they could use some improve­ments, but I also know that they saved me.

Getting rid of SNAP is not just an attack on cur­rent SNAP recip­i­ents; it is an attack on every­one who has ever been at risk of being hun­gry. Like oth­er social needs—for exam­ple, ramps on sidewalks—these things are here for every­one, not only those who need them today but also for those who might need them tomor­row. Today, you may be liv­ing in a two-income house­hold with mon­ey to spare, but tomor­row you could expe­ri­ence a job loss, a new child on the way, a major car repair, or any num­ber of changes that cost mon­ey and may be out of your control.

Incomes change, and when they do, you still deserve to eat and be well. What do we pay tax­es for if not for pro­grams that make our lives better?

Not only is it cru­el to tar­get SNAP, it is also an inef­fec­tive way of address­ing fraud in the pro­gram, since the major­i­ty of the fraud is com­mit­ted not by the peo­ple who need that safe­ty net in order to eat. Some SNAP fraud is com­mit­ted through admin­is­tra­tive errors (mean­ing the state is respon­si­ble), and some through inten­tion­al skim­ming of ben­e­fit cards, which then leaves peo­ple hun­gry and requir­ing them to file reports to try to get the mon­ey replaced.

Federal leg­is­la­tors now want to con­nect the state’s error rate to the per­cent­age of pro­gram costs they have to pay in order to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing ben­e­fits to the num­ber of peo­ple they serve. So the more Kentucky’s admin­is­tra­tion mess­es up, the less mon­ey they’ll have for peo­ple to spend on food. Ineffective and expen­sive. And worse, they could decide not to par­tic­i­pate in SNAP at all. 

This pro­posed fed­er­al bud­get will have far-reach­ing con­se­quences beyond food access. For exam­ple, if we cut Medicaid spend­ing, that means few­er peo­ple will receive pre­ven­ta­tive care, because, as many of us know from expe­ri­ence, when it’s expen­sive to go to the doc­tor, you only go when you absolute­ly have to, and no ear­li­er. This often means the Emergency Room is your pri­ma­ry care. More unin­sured peo­ple equals more ER vis­its and more severe health con­di­tions. Fewer Medicaid reim­burse­ments for those patients means less mon­ey for fund­ing Clark Regional Medical Center. Less hos­pi­tal fund­ing leads to few­er staff and old­er equip­ment, at best. At worst, our hos­pi­tal, which employs more than 500 peo­ple, is at risk of clos­ing with­out those Medicaid dollars. 

Similarly, if we cut SNAP, few­er peo­ple will be able to eat what they need to stay well. In this coun­ty alone, we’re talk­ing about 1789 kids and 771 elders. Hungry peo­ple are often sick peo­ple. Sick peo­ple are less able to keep a job and main­tain school atten­dance. Hungry peo­ple are also not spend­ing mon­ey in our gro­cery stores and at our farm­ers’ mar­ket. Less mon­ey into Clark County’s food sup­ply results in less mon­ey in local cir­cu­la­tion for every­thing else we buy. 

Speaking of hun­gry kids, SNAP and Medicaid cuts could also reduce school meals. Nine Clark County Public Schools heav­i­ly rely on a pro­gram called the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which uti­lizes SNAP and Medicaid enroll­ment, among oth­er fac­tors, to deter­mine the num­ber of stu­dents eli­gi­ble for free meals. As defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Services, CEP is a non-pric­ing meal ser­vice option for schools and school dis­tricts in low-income areas. CEP allows the nation’s high­est-pover­ty schools and dis­tricts to serve break­fast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled stu­dents with­out col­lect­ing house­hold appli­ca­tions (which would be a lot of paperwork).

Instead, our schools receive reim­burse­ment for each meal they serve based on the num­ber of their stu­dents who auto­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fy for free meals. Students are auto­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied for free meals if they meet cer­tain require­ments, includ­ing if they already receive SNAP or Medicaid. If we reduce the num­ber of kids receiv­ing SNAP and Medicaid, we are reduc­ing the amount of mon­ey our schools are reim­bursed for each meal served, mean­ing they need more mon­ey to feed their kids—our kids—more than 5,000 of them in Clark County.

If these life-sav­ing pro­grams are what our leg­is­la­tors call “waste, fraud, and abuse,” what else will they be will­ing to cut? The peo­ple this bud­get impacts are all of us. We are all tar­gets. They can cut and cut all they want in the hopes of reduc­ing the bud­get, but all they’re real­ly cut­ting is our safe­ty net, our earned ben­e­fits. Unrealistic “boot­straps” metaphors won’t save us from pover­ty and poor health. Real invest­ments and the humil­i­ty to rec­og­nize that any of us could need these pro­grams… that can save us. 

The Senate should reject these par­tic­u­lar­ly harm­ful cuts.

Please act now to send an email or make a phone call to our Senators and let them know that Kentucky can’t afford these cuts to SNAP and Medicaid. By next week, we could be one step clos­er to few­er resources in our com­mu­ni­ty, so now is the time to make your opin­ion heard. If you or your busi­ness has ben­e­fit­ed from SNAP dol­lars, I encour­age you to fill out this sto­ry col­lec­tor (anony­mous­ly, if need­ed) for the Kentucky Food Action Network. These sto­ries are being shared with the media and deci­sion-mak­ers in Kentucky and DC.

Here’s the con­tact infor­ma­tion for Kentucky’s two senators.