Governor Calls Impacts of Reductions in Federal SNAP Programs “Devastating”
Devastating. About this, it appears that the state’s Governor Jared Polis and our local Chaffee Board of County Commissioners agree, and there is data to back up that concerning conclusion.
The U.S. House has passed the “big, beautiful bill” by a single vote, and it is now in committee in the Senate. But now more changes are being made, and if anything, say Democrats, they are worse for ordinary Americans, and Coloradans.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that cuts to food assistance and Medicaid could cost our low-income households about $1,600 per year. At the same time, the “big beautiful bill” — or BBB — (President Donald Trump’s term, not ours) is projected to give the highest earners about $12,000 back in tax cuts.
Convened as the Chaffee Board of the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners got a sobering message from DHS Director Monica Haskell on Monday.
“The bad news is the budget bill will impact us, but it’s very complicated,” began Haskell. “The big picture major impacts include SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program).”
“Currently, they are a pass-through. We distribute, and the federal government pays us back those dollars,” she began. “Now, they want 50 percent of the cost to go down to the state for reimbursement. That was the House version … now the recommendation in the Senate is 25 percent to the state.”
But then, she continued, there is something known as the “Error Rate” which requires states to pick up more of the food assistance costs, based on potential errors in the data. No state, Haskell explained is at zero errors, and the percentages are jumping all over the place.
“We are currently as a state at eight percent of an error rate, and they are recommending you have to pay a certain percentage of the cost of your error rate… if you’re up to eight percent it’s 15 percent …. then if you’re up to 10 percent, it’s 25 percent. Of course, if the state gets a six percent error rate, it’s no cost.
But, she cautioned, even if the county’s error rate is low, it won’t matter — all counties would get the rate the state received. “If we do better, it won’t change it — it’s a state rate.”
She raised the topic of work requirements. “Originally they made the range of work requirements from 18 to 55. Now the Senate wants to move it to 18 to 64.”
“What happens after that,” asked Commissioner P.T. Wood.
“They have to do the work requirements,” answered Haskell.
“What if they can’t work — they just starve?” said Wood. “That’s cruel.”
The report didn’t end there — the changes to the Medicaid program were next. The original BBB was passed it in the House, and this is what is happening to it in the Senate.
Haskell said that the local county in checking on and determining whether someone who was receiving Medicaid benefits has passed away is being handed off to the county under the guise of reducing “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
“If someone dies, we have to find out where the people were before they were reported to us, or paid for medical expenses when the person is dead.” She added that local staff has been told that verifying someone’s eligibility for Medicaid, which used to be an annual task, will now be required to be done every six months.
“This transfers the burden onto our staff,” she concluded. “It is doubling our workload.”
“So they’re shifting the burden to the Chaffee County taxpayer,” concluded Wood.
“One of the changes that could negatively impact our community members is the waiver for long-term care,” said Haskell. “There is the waiver for the cost of the equity of your home. Before if it was your primary home, the waiver was in place so you could retain it. Now there are new rules being proposed: the waiver will go up to $1 million in [accrued]value, but not beyond. This is a huge impact on the people of this community.”
“That is penalizing people for living in their houses for a long time,” commented Wood. “Again, it’s cruel.”
Wood brought the discussion home to the population of Chaffee County. “So we have about 3,500 residents, or about 20 percent of our population affected. This will impact about 20 percent of our population.”
Chaffee DHS also noted that to implement all these work requirements they are foisting off on states and counties, the federal government allocated $100 million for the entire country. The state of Colorado has estimated that to get these new tracking systems running, it estimates Colorado alone will need $57 million.
发表回复