Cuts to health care and food programs disproportionately hurt children
Rural areas, southern states will bear the brunt
The budget reconciliation bill currently making its way through the Senate will disproportionately hurt the nation’s children by cutting the programs that benefit them most, experts said today on Capitol Hill.
“We keep hearing this rhetoric that none of the bill targets kids, that these changes do not hurt kids. That’s impossible,” said First Focus on Children health policy expert Abuko Estrada at “Invest in Kids,” a briefing hosted by First Focus on Children, the Congressional Dads Caucus and the Congressional Mamas’ Caucus. “You can’t take a third of the funding for a program that mainly serves kids and say it doesn’t hurt kids.”
The budget proposal passed by the House of Representatives would cut more than $800 billion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and would cut nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Senate is likely to maintain many of these cuts, panelists said.
Federal spending on children accounts for just 8.87% of the total U.S. budget, according to Children’s Budget 2024, although children make up 23% of the population. But the programs Congress has targeted disproportionately serve children: 20% of Medicaid funding goes to children, 43% of SNAP funding goes to children, and of course, 100% of CHIP funding goes to children and pregnant women. Cuts to these programs will almost certainly push the share of spending on children much lower. During the first Trump Administration, the president proposed reducing this share to a record low of 7.32%.
The budget bill under consideration in the Senate would significantly alter Medicaid and CHIP, jeopardizing health care access for over 37 million children, by including waiting periods, lock outs for parents who can’t keep up with premiums, and caps on annual and lifetime benefits. The package also would reduce the federal matching rate for adults in Medicaid expansion states to 80% if the state provides health care benefits to residents who are ineligible because of their immigration status — even if the states are using money from their own taxpayers.
“We are resurrecting barriers for children,” First Focus on Children’s Estrada said.
The bill also threatens the food security of at least 4 million children who live in households that could lose their benefits as a result of increased work requirements. The bill would also shift hundreds of millions of dollars in program and benefit costs to the states, said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), and revise the formula that determines benefits in a way that reduces the amount.
“If states cannot afford these cost shifts, they will pull out of the program,” Bhatti said. “Food insecurity has increased three years in a row. And the one program that fights hunger is getting cut. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Panelists also criticized the bill’s Child Tax Credit provision. Supporters focus on the increased amount of the credit — from $2000 per child to a maximum of $2500 per child — but other changes would deny the full credit to an additional 5 million children. Rural areas and states in the South would be hardest hit.
“These changes are not centered on children and families,” said Michelle Dallafior, First Focus on Children senior vice president for budget and tax. “And they do not help children most in need.”
To view the recorded briefing, visit Children’s Week 2025-Invest in Kids Briefing.