Kaine: Trump cuts to Medicare/Medicaid need reversal
PENNINGTON GAP – Virginia U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine used a Southwest Virginia hospital Thursday to highlight concerns about the Trump administration’s impact on health care and food assistance in the region.
Kaine spent day three of a four-day tour across the state to get public input on impacts from the administration’s “big beautiful” budget reconciliation bill that passed Congress before the U.S. House’s July 4 recess.
After touring Lee County Community Hospital with Ballad Health administrators and staff, Kaine recalled how Ballad had been able to reopen LCCH just over four years ago thanks to federal provisions supporting rural critical access care facilities through improved Medicare/Medicaid support.
The reconciliation bill includes cuts to various Medicare/Medicaid benefits, Kaine said after the tour, and may affect hospitals’ ability to file for payments under the programs.
While he did not have data on specific Southwest Virginia counties, Kaine said areas including Scott, Lee and Wise counties have higher proportions of seniors in their populations that other parts of Virginia.
“Any cuts to the Medicaid program have a disproportionate effect here,” said Kaine. “I usually hear concerns about Medicaid cuts and less about the Medicare program, but I’ve heard some significant concerns about the way Medicare, especially Medicare Advantage is being administered in a way that makes it tough for some hospitals like Ballad to provide service.”
Some Senate Republicans have expressed second thoughts on the bill’s level of health care cuts, Kaine said.
“There’s an openness, I think, to discussing can we get this right, is there a better balance,” said Kaine. “We are working on the appropriations bill now and I think there’s going to be an opportunity in that discussion in September that might we go back on some of the cuts, soften the blow and figure out ways that both patients and providers aren’t affected so significantly.”
Getting an appropriations bill together in the Senate still requires 60 votes, and the Senate has a 53-47 Republican majority over Democrats. Kaine said that means there will have to be discussion and compromise on both sides.
The reconciliation bill still raises fundamental legal issues over the administration’s claims it can pull back various funding already passed by Congress and signed into law, Kaine said.
Appalachian Sustainable Development announced July 31 that it has lost a $16 million USDA farmer technical assistance grant allocation and will see another USDA Agricultural Marketing Services grant for $1.5 million reimbursing food purchases for ASD’s Duffield Food Hub end in 2026.
“They shouldn’t have lost the grants “ Kaine said, adding that he was “troubled that the Trump administration had clawed back congressionally appropriated funds for the ASD program.
“This was a grant that was already given,” said Kaine. “Under what legal authority can it be clawed back? Clawing back existing grants, especially safety net programs like food assistance, I’m very troubled by that.”
Southwest Virginia is not the only region seeing USDA grant retractions, Kaine said, with representatives of all seven regional food banks in Virginia seeing similar withholding of grants for feeding programs or direct food purchases.
Kaine was slated to visit a factory in Bland later in the day that has benefitted from the Biden era Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for energy manufacturing investments. Friday will see the senator visiting Richmond to discuss affordable child care access.