Republican and Democratic leaders have either downplayed or overstated the estimated impact of the House reconciliation bill on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that due to work requirements in the bill, 3.2 million people would lose all of their SNAP benefits, which provide financial help to low-income people for groceries.
Republicans say that able-bodied adults who don’t work would lose Medicaid coverage under the House tax-cuts-and-spending bill, while Democrats say the legislation would hurt vulnerable groups. The bill’s main target is those able-bodied adults, but other groups would lose coverage due to paperwork burdens and other provisions in the bill, health policy experts say.
A House-passed reconciliation bill would reduce federal funding to states that provide state-funded health insurance to people in the U.S. illegally, resulting in 1.4 million people losing coverage, according to a preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis. But President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have wrongly cast the bill as removing these immigrants from Medicaid.