Senator Deb Patterson gets answers on gravity of federal cuts to health care and food access State agency leaders explain federal budget bill requires more bureaucracy, sets barriers

SALEM, OR – Senator Deb Patterson (D – Salem) brought state officials and other health care leaders before the Senate Interim Committee and Health Care today to get specifics on what the Trump administration’s severe budget cuts will do to health care and food access in Oregon. Testimony revealed the federal government will demand more red tape to qualify for benefits and cause rural Oregon to face some of the most severe losses.
“Oregon has been a leader nationally in simplifying benefit applications so it’s efficient to connect people to health care and food assistance,” said Senator Patterson, Chair of the Oregon Senate Health Care Committee. “But the federal government now is requiring Oregon spend its own resources to put people through repetitive, costly, and counterproductive bureaucratic processes that don’t help Oregonians. They’re making Oregon carry out their harmful policies at our own expense.”
The federal budget law has a poor design for new requirements that many more people applying for health care benefits or nutrition assistance must show they are working, going to school, or doing other community service activities. It makes proving compliance very difficult, with different standards between programs on what qualifies as a work activity, who the work requirements apply to, and how often people will have to prove it, even if jobs in the area are scarce and unemployment is high. This will be especially difficult for older adults and residents of more rural areas.
Oregon’s rural communities will be widely affected by the convoluted new rules. Leaders from the Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority showed the committee that in eight of Oregon’s rural and frontier counties, 20 percent of the population or more now receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Separate federal cuts to subsidies for private health insurance will hit rural Oregon hardest, with rural seniors facing as much as $2,700 a month in increased premium costs.
Committee member Senator Lisa Reynolds, MD (D – Portland) reminded the panel who benefits from the cuts.
“The same law that will make it harder for low-income families to get health care or food assistance gives tax cuts amounting to an extra $12,000 a year for households in the top ten percent of income,” Sen. Reynolds said, citing Congressional Budget Office data.
Amid the difficult realities state agencies face ahead, Senator Patterson encouraged state leaders to remember Oregon’s strengths, asking the panelists what has been working well that the state can build on in the challenging future.
“We put the member or the individual first and the experience the member is having navigating our systems,” said Emma Sandoe, Medicaid director at the Oregon Health Authority. “We understand that people are going through a lot, even without having to deal with bureaucratic processes, and making that better for them is at the forefront of what we do.”