GOP Medicaid cuts will hurt veterans, people with disabilities, local health care access

May 16, 2025: Updated to include the number of Eastern Shore Rural Health’s locations.

Virginia health care providers, researchers, activists, and elected officials say that proposed cuts to Medicaid will be devastating to the commonwealth’s community health providers, veterans, and people with disabilities.

U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) released legislation on May 11 that would slash Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars between 2025 and 2034.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that, by 2034, the Medicaid cuts would reduce the number of people covered under the program by 10.3 million and leave 7.6 million more Americans without any insurance coverage at all.

President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t cut Medicare and Medicaid, yet he has endorsed these and other spending cuts packaged with a permanent extension of his 2017 tax cuts that mostly benefited wealthy individuals, calling them “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.”

The proposed changes include more red tape for Medicaid beneficiaries to prove their eligibility and document that they are employed, higher patient costs for doctors visits, and limits on how states can tax health providers to cover their portion of the program’s costs. Another provision would bar Medicaid funds from going to pay for health care at Planned Parenthood.

In a fact sheet, the advocacy group Protect Our Care predicted the Medicaid cuts will imperil health insurance for over 1.6 million Virginians, while leaving a $2.1 billion hole in the state budget. It noted that polling by Data for Progress found that only 8% of Virginians support cuts to Medicaid.

“These are the largest cuts to Medicaid in history,” Maddie Twomey, the group’s communications director, told the Virginia Independent in an email. “Their plan shifts enormous costs onto states and will devastate health care providers. The work requirements proposal will be particularly devastating for people with disabilities. The bottom line is they are ripping away coverage from millions of people to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”

Virginia GOP Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman were among a dozen House Republicans who signed an April 14 letter to House Republican leaders opposing major Medicaid cuts. Both lawmakers, however, voted repeatedly for a budget framework that required steep Medicaid cuts like the ones being proposed. Neither responded to a request for comment for this story.

Asked about the cuts, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Virginia Independent in an email: “President Trump is protecting Medicaid for every eligible American who relies on it by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse within this program. By taking commonsense measures to strengthen Medicaid, we will ultimately improve care for those who this program is intended to serve: pregnant women, the disabled, seniors, and low-income families. The President has repeatedly said that he will save Medicaid to ensure it remains a reliable and sustainable lifeline for generations to come.” 

Community health providers and rural hospitals 

Protect Our Care founder and chair Leslie Dach told the Virginia Independent in an interview that rural hospitals and community health centers will see their costs go up and their revenue go down with fewer patients covered by Medicaid.

“Many, many, many will forgo health care. That will reduce revenue,” Dach said. “These rural hospitals and the providers get hit from both sides, right? Fewer people can even show up. And the ones that do show up, they’ll take care of in the emergency room because they didn’t have the resources to get preventative care.”

Dr. Joan Lingen, chief medical officer of Eastern Shore Rural Health, which has 13 locations across the state, said in a phone interview that community health centers in Virginia serve 400,000 people, 41% of whom are on Medicaid. “We provide primary medical, dental, behavioral health and pharmacy services for 70% of our 45,000 population,” she said.

Lingen predicted that Medicaid cuts would force centers to reduce services, such as pharmacy assistance and health education, and potentially limit hours. 

“We were seeing hospitals, especially rural hospitals, that were on the verge of closing before Medicaid expansion,” Virginia Democratic Rep. Jennifer McClellan told MSNBC on May 12. “And I think it’s really important to understand that just because one person loses their health insurance, it doesn’t just affect that person. It affects the entire system. The costs are going to be paid by the rest of us, our insurance premiums are going to go up, providers will close, and people will die.”

Veterans and military families

The Commonwealth Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Richmond, reported in April that 47,155 Virginia veterans, or 1 in 13, rely on Medicaid for health care coverage. 

Nationally, Medicaid provides supplementary insurance to an estimated 860,000 service members covered by the TRICARE program and 3.4 million children of veterans, according to the Center for Children at Families at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. The center noted in a January report that service members have unique medical needs due to frequent moving and service-related health conditions.

“Don’t take away our Medicaid, don’t take away our system that we depend on. Most veterans live paycheck to paycheck … when we talk about taking away their survival system, their mental health is going to be affected,” Tony Hedgepeth, a veteran and Medicaid-funded home care provider to veterans, said at an April 18 roundtable hosted by Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott. “So we need to do everything we can to stop this steal, to stop giving away our money to the wealthiest and give it to the ones that served their country.”

“The Republican cuts to Medicaid will hurt children, hurt families, hurt pregnant women, hurt seniors, and hurt Americans with disabilities who rely upon Medicaid to go see a doctor and to live the best possible life,” Scott told the Virginia Independent in an email. “And as the report from The Commonwealth Institute highlights, veterans and military families will not be spared.”

People with disabilities

Steve Grammer, a Roanoke resident with cerebral palsy, relies on Medicaid for home care assistance and has no access to other insurance. 

“Medicaid covers all of my prescriptions, my doctor’s visits, my wheelchair,” he said in a Zoom interview. “If they cut Medicaid, it would make it more difficult to get a wheelchair as needed or medication.”

Grammar worries that cuts to the program will make it harder for people with disabilities to access equipment and to live independently. “I would tell Congress cutting Medicaid violates our ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] rights to have a life like yours,” Grammar added.

Protect Our Care’s Dach noted that even if the cuts do not directly reduce care for Grammer, they will leave states with less funding to pay for Medicare expenses, imperiling care for everyone. “The pot will be smaller,” Dach said, “I can understand why he would be concerned.”

Experts also say that the increased bureaucratic red tape may mean eligible beneficiaries lose care.

“Red tape and paperwork will cause eligible people to lose coverage, including people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for health care, home care, and the support they need to live in their communities,” said The Arc of the United States, a disability rights advocacy group, in a press release.

“Medicaid supports 1.8 million Virginians,” Virginia Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said in an email. “It provides mental health services. It ensures kids with disabilities get what they need, and it provides access to free and reduced-price school meals. Several hundred thousand Virginians with disabilities rely on Medicaid. Republicans are ripping away this health care safety net, so that their ultra-rich friends will pay less. It’s cruel and wrong.”