MONTGOMERY — The “Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the U.S. House and Senate will make basic needs like food and health care more expensive through severe cuts to food assistance, Medicaid and other human services, according to the executive director of the nonprofit Alabama Arise.
The House approved the legislation 218-214 today; it was passed by the Senate 51-50 Tuesday after Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote. The bill now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature.
The funding cuts will finance renewals and expansions of tax cuts for wealthy people and highly profitable corporations, Executive Director Robyn Hyden said in a statement today.
“It’s wrong to hurt people who are struggling to help people who are already far ahead. But Congress just passed legislation that will do exactly that,” Hyden said. “This budget bill is not only a moral failure. It’s bad policy, and it is a really bad deal for Alabama and our entire country.
“It also will undermine important bipartisan progress that state policymakers made this year on food affordability and maternal health care.”
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Hyden said the bill will remove food assistance, health coverage and other vital services from tens of thousands of Alabama families.
Hyden also said the state will “feel the worst effects from cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”
“SNAP benefits have been fully federally funded for decades, but this plan will change that starting in October 2027,” Hyden said. “If this legislation were in effect now, Alabama would be on the hook for about $207 million a year in direct benefits and additional administrative costs for SNAP.
“That amount would be roughly the same as the state’s first-year cost to expand Medicaid to cover nearly 200,000 adults with low incomes, and it would not include the cost savings that Medicaid expansion would generate for other services.”
Hyden said the shift from federal to state responsibility for SNAP could cut participation in the program significantly “or even eliminate the program altogether for nearly 800,000 participants statewide.”
This federal cost shift would reduce the state’s ability to fund existing essential services and programs and could lead to deep SNAP cuts that would devastate grocery stores and other retailers, Hyden said.
“Federal SNAP cuts will leave more Alabamians unable to afford to keep food on the table,” Hyden said. “That is a step in the wrong direction, and it will undermine the benefits of the state grocery tax reduction that Alabama legislators enacted unanimously this year.”
Hyden claimed the bill would make health care inaccessible or less affordable by allowing enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire, increasing premium costs for marketplace plans.
“In total, nearly 200,000 Alabamians could lose health coverage as a result of policy changes like these,” Hyden said. “Those coverage losses likely will increase hospitals’ uncompensated care costs and make health care even less accessible in rural areas.
“Fourteen rural hospitals in our state have closed since 2010 and more than 20 others are at risk of closing. When a hospital or clinic closes, it closes for everyone, regardless of their insurance status.”
“The human toll of cutting health coverage is all too real. It might mean a later cancer diagnosis for your neighbor. Your pregnant friend might die when her preeclampsia isn’t caught or treated in time because she has to drive an hour longer to get to a doctor. Your son or daughter might experience a mental health crisis and have no way to access or pay for care. Funding for health coverage is not just a line on a spreadsheet. It is often literally a matter of life or death for people facing medical challenges.
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