In a nutshell: The proposed SNAP and Medicaid cuts are real, and they will hurt our neighbors

At North Valley Food Bank, I meet people every week who work hard, care for others, and still can’t make ends meet. A grandmother raising her grandkids on her Social Security. A seasonal worker juggling multiple part-time jobs. A dad shopping at the food bank during his lunch break.

Programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and Medicaid are lifelines for our neighbors. But right now, Congress is considering a budget that would cut over $300 billion from SNAP and $600 billion from Medicaid. These are the largest cuts either program has faced in history, and if passed, the impacts will ripple through families, schools, health clinics, grocery stores, and food banks across Montana. 

SNAP currently helps feed more than 80,000 Montanans and brings over $169 million into our local economy each year. It supports grocers, farmers, and food banks. For every one meal a food bank like ours provides, SNAP provides nine. These cuts would shift SNAP costs to states, forcing Montana to come up with $43 million by 2028 - the equivalent of 12.5 million meals lost. Our food banks - while incredibly effective - cannot possibly make up that gap. 

Under new rules, parents of kids as young as seven and older adults between 55 and 64 would have to prove 80 hours of work each month to stay eligible for SNAP. That’s tough for caregivers, seasonal workers, and people working variable hours.  

Even those who are working could lose access due to missing paperwork or similar barriers. In Montana, 11,000 people could lose benefits altogether, and 22,000 more could see theirs reduced. This would translate to a lot of empty dinner plates, especially when the current average benefit is just $6 per person per day. 

Similarly, more than 230,000 Montanans are currently enrolled in Medicaid, including thousands right here in the Flathead. It covers, for example, 36% of births in our state and keeps rural hospitals afloat. But the new budget proposal could push people off the program - through burdensome work requirements, six-month re-verification, and new cost-sharing that would force people living just above the poverty line to pay out of pocket to see a doctor. For someone managing chronic illness that might mean skipping care entirely. And because rural hospitals depend heavily on Medicaid reimbursements, further cuts could mean reduced services or even closures. 

That’s why it was such a major win when the Montana Legislature voted to remove the 2025 sunset clause from our state’s Medicaid expansion earlier this year. Thanks to this bipartisan decision, over 75,000 Montanans will continue to access life-saving health care for now. It was a powerful reminder that when lawmakers put people first, we all benefit. 

But the proposed federal cuts move us in the opposite direction. They threaten everything from child nutrition to emergency care, all while giving households earning over $1 million a year an average $90,000 tax break. 

These cuts aren’t about cracking down on fraud - SNAP and Medicaid fraud is rare and targeted solutions exist to prevent misuse of both programs. Further, most people who receive benefits already work. 71% of Montana adults on Medicaid are employed and more than 80% of SNAP households have at least one person who is working. These cuts are about shifting costs onto states and pushing people off the programs they rely on to survive. 

Montanans value fairness, hard work, and neighbors helping neighbors. This budget proposal fails those values. It risks harming children, seniors and countless working families across our state. 

We need our congressional leaders to stand up for our communities and vote no on any budget that weakens the basic supports so many Montanans count on. We need to protect SNAP and Medicaid. No one in Montana should have to choose between food, medicine and other basic needs.