{"id":87948,"date":"2025-07-24T06:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T06:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87948\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T06:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T06:29:15","slug":"snap-and-medicaid-cuts-put-bakersfield-in-political-economic-crosshairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/87948\/","title":{"rendered":"SNAP and Medicaid Cuts Put Bakersfield in Political, Economic Crosshairs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce federal SNAP spending by tightening exemptions for work requirements and requiring states to pick up a larger share of the program\u2019s cost. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/research\/food-assistance\/senate-agriculture-committees-revised-work-requirement-would-risk-taking\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">estimated<\/a> that nearly 370,000 Californians are at risk of losing food stamp benefits because of the changes in work requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Even deeper cuts are coming to Medicaid. The bill includes new requirements for recipients to prove they are working, volunteering or attending school, along with new limits on provider taxes \u2014 mechanisms that states such as California use to fund their Medicaid programs. Nonprofit health research group KFF <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/medicaid\/issue-brief\/allocating-cbos-estimates-of-federal-medicaid-spending-reductions-across-the-states-senate-reconciliation-bill\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">estimates<\/a> that California will lose 19% of its federal Medicaid funding over the next decade \u2014 a total of $164 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFewer people are going to have health insurance coverage, because the amount of money that\u2019s available to finance that coverage has been cut at the federal level,\u201d said Kristof Stremikis, director of market analysis and insight at the California Health Care Foundation. \u201cThe insurance that people have is going to be less comprehensive, and so with less money available, you just cannot cover as many services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fate of hospitals in rural areas such as the Central Valley is a particular concern, Stremikis said. Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia receives more than 30% of its revenue from Medi-Cal. It\u2019s not only the largest hospital in Tulare County \u2014 it\u2019s also the largest employer.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12045245\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2208803787-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1570\"  \/>Farm workers labor in the fields south of Bakersfield, in Kern County, California\u2019s breadbasket, on April 9, 2025. (Frederic J. Brown\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the limits on eligibility and provider taxes, the bill also reduces the amount that hospitals can be reimbursed for treating certain undocumented immigrants, such as single adults making up to $21,597 a year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProviders are going to get paid less,\u201d Stremikis said. \u201cWhen there\u2019s less money in the system, there\u2019s just less money to pay hospitals, health systems, nursing homes, physicians\u2019 offices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Valadao defended his vote in support of the bill, citing a new $50 billion fund for rural hospitals and promising to \u201cengage with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] to identify specific risks to Valley hospitals and mitigate them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce federal SNAP spending by tightening exemptions for work requirements and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":87949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-87948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114906802587276442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}