Today, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill which includes steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and federal student loan programs. While that may not seem like an LGBTQ issue, it is an “everybody” issue. And the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law has put together some information to show how much of an impact these cuts will potentially have on LGBTQ people:
Medicaid
• The bill reduces federal Medicaid spending and requires beneficiaries to show that they are working or in school for 80 hours per month to keep their health insurance. An earlier provision banning Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care was removed from the bill.
• LGBT adults are twice as likely as non-LGBT adults to have Medicaid as their primary source of health insurance (13 percent vs. 7 percent).
• Approximately 1.8 million LGBT adults rely on Medicaid as their primary source of health insurance, including 2 million lesbian and bisexual women, 1 million LGBT adults living with a disability, 560,000 LGBT parents with children under 18 in their households, 390,000 cisgender gay and bisexual men and 185,000 transgender adults
• Cuts to Medicaid funding will have a disproportionate impact on subpopulations of LGBT people who are more likely rely on the program for their primary health insurance, including 26 percent who rely on Medicaid and are living with low incomes, 19 percent who are raising children, 18 percent who have disabilities, 17 percent of cisgender lesbian and bisexual women, 16 percent of people of color and 12 percent of transgender people.
• Expanded work and community engagement requirements will create further barriers to accessing Medicaid. Approximately eight in 10 LGBT adults on Medicaid either are working (46 percent), have worked in the past year (9 percent), are students (12 percent), or are unable to work (13 percent).
SNAP
• The bill shifts costs for food assistance to the states and tightens eligibility requirements.
• Nearly 2.1 million LGBT adults rely on SNAP, including 3 million LGBT adults living with a disability, 3 million lesbian and bisexual women, 900,000 LGBT adults who have children under 18 in their household, 500,000 cisgender gay and bisexual men and 250,000 transgender adults
• LGBT adults are more likely than non-LGBT adults to have received SNAP benefits in the past year (15 percent vs. 11 percent).
• Almost seven in 10 (69 percent) LGBT adults who received SNAP benefits in the past year had household incomes under $35,000, two-thirds (66 percent) were living with a disability, and nearly half (49 percent) had a child under 18 living in their household.
• More than 90 percent of LGBT adults who received SNAP (91 percent) in the past year were either currently working (42 percent), had worked in the past year (6 percent), were students (8 percent), homemakers (9 percent), retired (5 percent) or were unable to work (21 percent).
Student Loans
• The bill caps federal student loans for graduate students and parent PLUS loans for undergraduates.
• More than one-third (35 percent) of LGBTQ adults aged 18 to 40 — an estimated 2.9 million LGBTQ people — hold more than $93.2 billion in federal student loans.
• About half (51 percent) of transgender adults, 36 percent of cisgender LBQ women and 28 percent of cisgender GBQ men have federal student loans.
— Tammye Nash