The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization has received an influx of calls in the last week from concerned residents with questions about how the GOP cuts to the social safety net will affect their Medicaid or food stamps. State Chair Maureen Taylor, however, can only tell them the rules for each program. What she definitely can’t say is that she’s alarmed. But she is.
“I’m scared already,” Taylor told Salon. “I’m not the scary type. It’s [been] six months, and I’m frightened right down to my ankles.”
The organization’s 11 staff have been up to their necks in resident requests for help with utility bills amid the summer heat waves — and struggling to reach others in need of assistance before it’s too late. Now, the just-passed Republican tax and spending bill has added another set of hurdles to the livelihoods of the low-income Michiganders she serves that she’ll be readying herself and the community for in the next few months.
President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” became law on July 4, sparking alarm among Americans who fear losing access to vital services. More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under the Affordable Care Act, while 40 million Americans use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and most recipients already work, according to analysts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in late June that 11.8 million more people would become uninsured and 3 million more would no longer qualify for SNAP benefits by 2034 under the law.
“Shadowboxing” is advocates’ term for navigating the breadth and confusion of the bill’s social service funding and qualification changes, as many are now starting to prepare resources and their communities for the inevitable harm the rollbacks will cause when they start to take effect, largely next year.
The president’s bill adds a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement for adults up to age 65 who are receiving Medicaid and SNAP benefits, including parents of children 14 and older. Work requirements for Medicaid recipients are set to take effect by early 2027, with some states allowed to implement them sooner should they obtain a waiver; the effective date of work requirements for SNAP eligibility is unclear. Medicaid enrollees will also have to prove their eligibility twice a year, rather than annually, beginning in late 2026.
“We’re for real boxing in the dark because we can’t see the physical nature of the enemy yet. It’s out there, but we can’t see it yet,” Taylor said. “All we can do is try to prepare these different communities, the marginalized communities, and tell folks, ‘You got to get to your welterweight, you got to change your health practices, your daily living practices, because something is coming. And if you’re gonna fight it, you gonna have to be in shape.’ That’s the message we’ve been trying to tell people, ‘Get ready.”
Though she’s unsure of what that will look like for the organization, Taylor said MWRO has already started trying to set some kind of plan in motion. The organization has started searching for public officials who can help staff better understand the reconciliation law via special trainings, and it intends to reach out to the Black Farmers’ Association and other groups to buttress food distribution programming. They’ll also need to work their healthcare partnerships, Taylor said, touching base with Doctors Without Borders to try to secure free beds in hospitals for the likely increase in uninsured and underinsured Michiganders the bill will create as well as the dozen Detroit churches that host medical services each week to expand that program.
“We have to do a food thing, a whole project of survival that’s got to be developed in the next two to three months, because we are already foreseeing shortages in food,” Taylor said, adding: “I have no idea what to do about Medicaid cuts that affect nursing homes and convalescent homes to the degree that they have to shut down. I have no clue.”
The GOP package cuts $1 trillion in Medicaid funding and other healthcare programs, as well as $186 billion in spending on SNAP and other food programs over the next decade.
Starting in early 2027, the three-month window for retroactive coverage will also shrink to just one month for Medicaid Expansion recipients and two months for traditional enrollees. Meanwhile, certain Medicaid users will start incurring charges up to $35 for Medicaid services that had previously been free in late 2028.
While state and federal governments currently split the cost of administering SNAP equally, the federal government traditionally shouldered the total cost of SNAP benefits. Under the new bill, however, states will be responsible for funding 75% of the administrative costs starting in fiscal year 2027 and up to 15% of the cost for food stamps based on the state’s payment error rate in the program beginning in 2028.
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As it stands, the bill will also cost the nation’s poorest households $1,600 a year due to Medicaid and food aid deductions, while the wealthiest will pocket an additional $12,000, according to the CBO’s analysis of the House’s bill.
For Anne Bacon, executive director of Impact Community Action Partnership in Iowa, the extended rollout of these changes creates another challenge of making sure people remain informed until they go into effect. Because Americans won’t feel most of the impacts of this legislation until a year or two down the line, she told Salon she’s worried that the nation’s most vulnerable won’t be as prepared as they could be.
“I’m concerned that people will think it was the Chicken Little, you know, ‘Y’all said the sky was falling, and now nothing’s happened,’” she said in a phone interview. “Well, it’s gonna.”
Bacon, whose organization provides utility help, housing assistance and food pantries in five Iowa counties including four rural ones, said that when Iowans can’t afford to pay their medical bills or don’t receive enough food assistance, Impact CAP sees the demand for its services rise — and the team is anticipating a steep uptick as the law’s provisions come into effect. She’s especially worried about the state’s handling of SNAP funding, given that Iowa’s governor recently waived summer EBT to send monthly food boxes to low-income families instead, which Bacon said covers fewer food-insecure Iowans.
As such, Impact CAP staff are currently focusing on informing their clients about the incoming changes, how it will impact them and how they can make sure they can keep the benefits they qualify for. The new work requirements, Bacon said, will create more paperwork, compliance testing and hoops for people to jump through, adding an even greater barrier to accessing services for its rural communities.
In the coming months, Impact CAP will also be assessing and analyzing who the bill will make the most vulnerable and how to best help them navigate it, and is internally configuring food and staff availability in anticipation of the future increased demand.
“We spend a lot of time guessing and reaching out to our local officials and our representatives in D.C. and trying to keep those lines of communication open,” Bacon said.
While she’s grateful the changes aren’t immediate, Bacon said the timeline and the volatility of the current political environment make it hard to develop a concrete plan. She said she’s “never felt so embattled” in her 30 years of doing this work.
“It’s really hard to express how to prepare for absolute unknowns,” she said, adding: “I’m thankful that it’s not a light switch, that people are [not] going to lose their health care tomorrow, but it also means we could spend a lot of time and energy on something that could change. If leadership changes during the midterms, it could all get turned around again.”
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In Nebraska, which has a large rural population that disproportionately faces food insecurity, the new law will exacerbate social service funding issues as the state navigates its existing budget deficit, according to Eric Savaiano, the food and nutrition access program manager for Nebraska Appleseed, a nonprofit law and policy organization.
Savaiano told Salon that the organization has also received a flurry of communications from people who are scared to lose their benefits and is similarly concerned about the loss in access to SNAP that the paperwork hurdle and immigration status requirements pose.
While the program does not help people sign up for benefits, they’re working to make sure their clients understand the new requirements and are aware of opportunities to make those programs better through legislation and administrative advocacy. Savaiano also said that his team is taking a legislative approach to addressing Nebraskans’ future needs under the law, attempting to help state lawmakers find ways to pay for the state’s increased financial responsibility without cutting services or delaying vital public projects.
“We’ve been talking to [federal lawmakers] for six months about what the bill could do and would do if it was accomplished,” he said. “I think they knowingly made these choices, and I think what we need to show them is just the impacts of the votes that they took.”
Sarah Maresh, who leads Nebraska Appleseed’s healthcare access program, said that her program is focusing on reducing harm as much as possible. The healthcare access team will be advocating for simple paperwork, the state’s Medicaid department to use external data sources to prove exemptions as much as possible and for adequate medical staff training to ease Nebraskans’ experience.
They’re also planning significant outreach to educate residents on the changes as well as engaging advocates, associations and service providers to make that outreach happen.
“We don’t really know what our universe of possibilities will be, so right now it’s hard to talk in specifics, which can always be challenging,” Maresh said. “But I think we recognize now the importance isn’t necessarily having the exact specifics — because it’s not available right now — but it’s really important to keep reaching out to folks and decisionmakers and tell them, even broadly, what we know: we need this to be operated in the way that’s going to be most effective for folks and is going to result in the least amount of people losing coverage and the least amount of burdens on our most vulnerable.”
That burden will likely be immense, Maresh said, citing a Nebraska Hospital Association estimate that more than 78,000 Nebraskans could lose coverage under the federal spending bill over 10 years.
“Everyday Nebraskans are going to be hurt regardless of whether they have Medicaid and marketplace coverage,” she added. “What we’re going to see here is this underfunded health system where everyone is going to struggle, and in this bill in particular, a de-prioritization of everyday Nebraskans and a prioritization of the ultra, extremely wealthy billionaires.”
“That’s something we’re going to continue to fight against,” she said.
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