Federal threats to social safety net

A version of this column originally appeared in The Alpena News.

At a time when costs are on the rise and far too many people are struggling to get by, federal lawmakers in the GOP are pushing forward with harmful budget resolutions that will significantly weaken our country’s social safety net in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and U.S. corporations.

The U.S. Senate budget resolution, adopted last week, and the U.S. House GOP proposal, expected to be taken up this week, lay the groundwork for deep cuts in social safety net programs that millions of Michiganders rely on. Cuts to Medicaid and the slashing of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are both on the table. 

Weakening these programs will cause widespread harm to families, children, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans and workers across the U.S. and right here in our state. It is with that in mind that we are calling on our federal lawmakers to reject proposals that will jeopardize programs like Medicaid and SNAP and instead affirm their commitment to helping more people access these and other essential programs they need to survive.

More than 2.6 million residents, including nearly 1 million children, rely on Medicaid here in Michigan. That amounts to roughly 1 in 4 Michiganders who are depending on this program for their preventive and primary care, emergency care, and long-term management of chronic illnesses. 

On a national scope, Medicaid is the largest payer of behavioral health services, ensuring critical access to mental healthcare and substance use disorder treatments, and it also covers a sizable share of maternal healthcare and births. Additionally, Medicaid enables seniors and people with disabilities to receive home and community-based services, and provides for nursing home care later in life. 

Access to quality healthcare is not just a human right, it’s essential to keeping communities healthy and preventing hospitals from closing due to financial strain. Rural areas in Michigan are expected to be some of the hardest hit by deep cuts to Medicaid, as 16% of Michigan seniors and 37% of Michigan children who depend on the program live in a rural community. The potential closure of hospitals would also have a major impact on access to healthcare in rural areas, where healthcare deserts already tend to be more prominent. 

More than 1.4 million Michiganders — 1 in 7 — participate in SNAP, including 41,000 veterans, and 23% of our state’s children — 527,620 — receive food assistance through SNAP. 

It’s important to recognize that these are not just numbers, however. They are people. They are our neighbors, friends and family members. They are people who participate in SNAP in order to receive one of their most basic survival needs: food. Food is essential for people to stay healthy, do well in school and earn a living. Taking food away from people does nothing to help them find jobs, achieve self-sufficiency or rein in healthcare spending. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

Nutrition programs like SNAP also have an outsized impact in rural communities, where agriculture and food processing is a larger sector of the economy and SNAP dollars are crucial to the survival of grocery stores. 

We know that the U.S. Senate and U.S. House budget blueprints will have a catastrophic impact on our communities and the people who call Michigan home, which is why we have spoken out in condemnation of them. Attempts to weaken the social safety net programs that struggling families rely upon in order to further line the pockets of the wealthiest people and businesses in our country should be called out for what they are: deplorable, nonsensical and cruel. 

We urge the congressional delegation from Michigan to think about the constituents that their decisions will impact — specifically the 41% of households in our state that are already living paycheck to paycheck — and reject any proposals that will only further weaken their economic security and jeopardize their health.