FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 6, 2025
Media Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennpolicy.org
House GOP Budget Proposal Threatens Pennsylvania Families, Seniors, Children, and the State Budget
Plan would push states to enact broad cuts, including to help affording groceries and health care
Harrisburg, PA — A detailed analysis of the reconciliation bill advanced by House Republicans shows that it would not only devastate Pennsylvania families by slashing federal funding for food security and health care but also by forcing states like Pennsylvania to pick up billions of dollars in costs and make excruciating choices about whether to fund education, infrastructure, and other critical public services.
The plan would radically restructure the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which for 50 years has ensured that low-income families in every state—including 2 million people in PA—can afford basic groceries. For the first time in modern history, states would be required to pay a share of SNAP food benefits, starting at 5% and rising as high as 25%, depending on technical payment “error rates,” which can vary substantially from year to year. In Pennsylvania, policymakers could even choose to end the program entirely.
At the likely higher rate, Pennsylvania would be left on the hook for over $1 billion per year for SNAP—a staggering cost that the state budget would be forced to absorb, according to a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
It’s not just SNAP recipients who would be hurt. SNAP pays for 8% of grocery purchases in Pennsylvania. In a very low-margin business, deep cuts to SNAP would threaten grocery stores, especially in urban and rural areas.
“This proposal is unrealistic at best and cruel at worst,” said Marc Stier, executive director, Pennsylvania Policy Center. “No state, including Pennsylvania, can afford to absorb this unfunded mandate. It would force Pennsylvania lawmakers to decide whether to take food away from seniors, veterans, and working families, who are already struggling to get by, or to defund other critical services like education and health care.”
The plan also introduces a series of restrictive policies that would strip health care coverage from millions, particularly in Pennsylvania and other states that expanded Medicaid by
- drastically undermining ACA marketplace coverage on Pennie by not extending enhanced tax credits. Annual premiums for a benchmark plan for a 60-year-old Pennsylvania couple would increase from $6,790 to $23,496. At least 32,000 people would have to drop health insurance because it would be too expensive.
- creating red tape that takes care away from the Medicaid expansion population: These measures create new arbitrary bureaucratic hurdles designed to trip up eligible individuals, causing many to lose coverage—not because they aren’t working or eligible but because they would get caught in red tape. Collectively, these policies amount to a “repeal by red tape.” More than 800,000 people in Pennsylvania get health care through the expansion. We estimate that more than 500,000 would lose their health insurance because of these new measures. This would disproportionately impact low-income workers with unstable jobs, caregivers, and people with chronic health conditions.
- denying health care to lawful immigrants or gutting funding: The bill also would force Pennsylvania to make an unconscionable choice: deny health care to certain lawfully present immigrants, including children, or face a sharp reduction in the enhanced federal Medicaid match, resulting in billions in lost federal funding.
- undermining health care for everyone: Beyond the immediate fiscal hit, deep reductions in Medicaid spending would ripple through the health care system, leading to greater uncompensated care, underfunded providers, and higher costs for states and localities. On average, the Medicaid expansion pays 27% of the cost of uncompensated care. But the percentage is even higher in rural communities. More than 25 hospitals in Pennsylvania are already in deep fiscal trouble. Many could be forced to close their doors.
- costing tens of thousands of jobs. Medicaid expansion generated about new 60,000 health care jobs in the state. The Medicaid expansion generated about new 60,000 health care jobs in the state. The proposed cuts are likely to cost us two-thirds of them.
House Republicans are pushing these sweeping cuts even as they propose massive new tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations—an upside-down agenda that would take from those with the least to give more to those with the most. The bill even boosts the Child Tax Credit for wealthy families but excludes 616,000 school kids in PA from receiving the full credit because their families’ incomes are too low.
“Families in PA need support in affording groceries and seeing a doctor. Taking that away to give tax breaks to the wealthy is horrible public policy,” said Stier. “We urge Congress to reject this proposal.”
If enacted, the proposal would not only hurt Pennsylvania residents but also spread throughout local economies, impacting grocers, rural hospitals, schools, and other cornerstones of communities. It’s a false choice—and one that state and local leaders should never be forced to make.
Pennsylvania Impacts at a Glance:
- SNAP participants in Pennsylvania: 2.01 million, about 1 out of 6 Pennsylvanians
- SNAP participants at risk of losing benefits due to expanded work requirements: 401,000
- Estimated annual state cost of SNAP benefits at a 25% match: more than $1.06 billion
- Potential Medicaid impacts from red tape and work requirements: up to 538,000 at risk of losing health care coverage
- Failure to extend improved ACA tax credits would make health insurance unaffordable for an estimated 32,000 people.
A Dangerous Time to Abandon State Support
At a time when families face rising prices and economic uncertainty, the federal budget should strengthen—not weaken—the basic needs programs that help people build stability and stronger communities.
The uncertainty about federal funding of safety net programs threatens to complicate already tense state budget negotiations. Like most other states, Pennsylvania’s budget is already under mounting fiscal stress. Stier concludes, “Neither Pennsylvania nor other states are in a position to shoulder the billions each year that the federal government provides to ensure that people have access to health care and groceries.”
More details and links to data sources can be found at https://pennpolicy.org.
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