Lida Shepherd from the American Friends Service Committee speaks against cuts against Medicaid and Snap at an event in Charleston Tuesday, June 17, 2025 (Lori Kersey | West Virginia Watch)
While the US Senate continues to discuss the “large, beautiful” budget reconciliation law, several organizations in West Virginia came together on Tuesday to ask their representatives not to support cuts in health and food aid programs.
“At the moment when we stand here on the west side of Charleston, West Virginia, Washington, DC, American Friends Service Committee, which helped to organize the event. “How great of our tax money is the richest families and companies … [while] Take Snap and Medicaid away from all of us? Will we let you get away with our life with political chess? NO.”
The event – in a clinic for health systems in the Kabin Creek – was also sponsored by Catholic charity organizations by West Virginia, the American Cancer Society, the Hunger Food Bank, the protection of our care, West Virginians for affordable health care and the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition.
The US House of Representatives almost passed a version of the invoice last month, which reduced Medicaid by more than 700 billion US dollars -the largest in the history of the program. The legislation would carry out the requirements for work reporting and will make around 15 million people in the next few years to lose their health insurance, say analysts.
The Senate version of the law would cut Medicaid even more And expand the proposed work requirements for the program.
The legislation of the house would also reduce 300 million US dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 2034 and drive some of the costs of Snap advantages for states for the first time.
In the Senate version of the law, the states from 2028 would pay between 5 and 15% of the Food benefit program, depending on their payment error. The displacement of costs could Place West Virginia on the hook for up to 84 million US dollars a year.
“This law is a cruel attack on veterans, people with disabilities, our health sector, on people who have to deal with the uncertainty of food, and to work families who earn health care and food as well as everyone else in this country,” said Shepherd.
About every third inhabitant of West Virginia relies on Medicaid for his health insurance. More than 277,000 – or one of six – west virginia inhabitants receive food aid from the SNAP program.
Representatives of justice and Capito did not respond to e -mails that requested a comment on Tuesday. Justice recently told politico Snap cuts in the invoice Could lead to republicans lose their super majority.
In an interview with CNBC last week, Capito said you should get those who need snap or medicaid services, but there are people in the programs that do not qualify.
“But what happened here is that there are people with these advantages, both advantage programs that do not deserve to be there or not to qualify and to stay for one reason for one reason,” said Capito. “We have to rinse this. If you get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse of the system so that it is there for the basic people who need it.”
Amber Crist is CEO of Cabin Creek Health Systems, a state -qualified health center. Last year, the network of clinics treated 20,000 patients, including 7,000 Medicaid recipients.
At the press conference, Crist said that almost two thirds of the West Virginians have already been working on Medicaid, and another 29% are caregivers, students or disabilities that keep them from working.
“These facts show no fraud, waste and abuse. These are signs of people who do their best, often under incredibly difficult circumstances,” said Crist.
Mariah Plante is a resident of Wyoming County, who is legally blind and non -verbal around her brother, who has autism. Medicaid offers the medical care of her brother, the glasses, behavior support, recipes and access to specialists that the family could never afford, she said.
“Above all, Medicaid allows us to take care of Matt at home where he is loved, not in a facility,” said Plant. “Without them, families like ours will be forced to make heartbreaking decisions. Nobody wants to bring their beloved people to such a place where the staff is too often revised, underpaid and undercut the needs and nuances of care for people who cannot take care of themselves.”
Sherri McKinney is Vice President of the International Union District 1199 of the Service Employee. She said that proposed Medicaid cuts would decimate the jobs in healthcare. The state faces a “health crisis” when the congress goes through the Medicaid cuts, she said.
“Let me be absolutely clear, cuts cut at Medicaid our life aspects,” said McKinney. “In a state like ours in West Virginia, almost every third West Virgin is dependent on Medicaid. The consequences of federal cuts are not measured in spreadsheets. They are measured in lost jobs, closed clinics, fighting families, unnecessary suffering and people will die.”
According to the analysis of researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, cuts at Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act would cause rural hospitals across the country, including seven in West Virginia.
The proposed reduction of 30%in order to snap the bill would mean that around 84,000 people in West Virginia lose their food advantages, said Shepherd.
Libby Booker, a menu operator and President of Women in The Naacp, spoke to snaps.
“In our community, in our state, only for healthy foods is so much need,” said Booker. “If we have healthy foods, we have healthy bodies.”
Booker said that when she was a single mother, she had difficulty putting robust eating on the table for her son.
“And now I see how our government loses its hearts and the citizens who have sent them to represent us in office,” said Booker.
They enable our work.
