Downstream effects of federal cuts seen in Kansas budget, access to healthcare, food assistance

TOPEKA — Repercussions from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act hit the Kansas budget with at least $16.4 million in costs and affected residents who lost health insurance and access to food assistance benefits.

Nonprofit leaders on Tuesday delved into the effects of President Donald Trump's reconciliation bill, H.R. 1, which passed about one year ago. They focused on downstream effects of policy changes.

"When lawmakers come back in January, they're already going to be facing hard choices," said Megan Leopold, senior policy adviser at Kansas Action for Children. "The fiscal year 2027 budget is expected to spend $407 million more than the state brings in."

The Legislature is balancing the budget gap by pulling money from the savings, but that can't continue, she said. Changes in the national reconciliation bill added to the problem, Leopold said.

"The Legislature went into the 2026 session with a failed goal to cut $200 million to help balance the budget," she said. "This bill extends expensive tax cuts while cutting federal support for programs that help vulnerable families. It pushes more responsibility onto the states, and in Kansas, where the budget is already under pressure, forces hard decisions about whether to cut services, raise revenue or reduce provider payments."

Budget effects

Managing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will cost the state $16.4 million more, beginning this fiscal year, Leopold said. The state previously split administrative costs for the program in half with the federal government.

Under H.R. 1, the state's share rose to 75%, she said.

In addition, under the state's current error rate in SNAP, Kansas will pay $40 million more to the federal government, which penalizes states that have error rates over 6%. In the most recent announcement of state error rates, only nine states had rates below 6%, she said.

The SNAP error rate refers to mistakes or errors made in SNAP applications and not to fraud.

Healthcare effects

Expiration of premium tax credits that helped people enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace caused a 20% drop in Kansans with marketplace coverage between February 2025 and February 2026, said Lacey Kennett, assistant director for Alliance for a Healthy Kansas.

While some enrollees chose to maintain coverage as prices skyrocketed, Kennett said many switched to plans with fewer benefits and higher out-of-pocket costs.

Kansans switch between four plan levels, from better to less-complete coverage: bronze, silver, gold and catastrophic. According to KFF, the percentage of Kansans enrolled in a top-level bronze plan dropped from 47% in 2025 to 34% in 2026, while silver plan enrollment rose from 45% in 2025 to to 56% in 2026. Gold plans rose from 7% in 2025 to 10% in 2026.

"The decision to go uninsured doesn't just affect our wallets, but also our health, of course," Kennett said. "When people have high out-of-pocket costs or no insurance coverage at all, they go without preventive care. They skip taking needed prescription medicines and put off treating illnesses and chronic conditions until they become emergencies."

Kennett said about 20,000 to 30,000 Kansans have lost Medicaid.

"Kansas has some of the strictest requirements to qualify for Medicaid in the entire country," she said, adding that the program, which supports low-income individuals, also covers children, pregnant and post-partum mothers, people with disabilities and seniors.

Medicaid changes beginning in January 2028 require Kansas to cut certain Medicaid payment rates by 10% each year, until they reach 110% of the Medicare rate, Leopold said. The resulting decreased payments to providers will further jeopardize Kansas medical facilities and their ability to serve Medicaid patients, she said.

Food assistance effects

About 11,000 Kansas children have lost access to SNAP since H.R. 1 was signed, said Haley Kottler, senior director for Kansas Appleseed.

"H.R. 1 made it harder for families to qualify for SNAP by expanding work requirements, narrowing exemptions and increasing administrative barriers," she said. "As a result, families who were previously eligible are losing benefits."

A primary concern, Kottler said, is the ripple effect of children losing school meals.

"Many children qualify for free school meals automatically because their families receive SNAP or Medicaid through a process called direct certification," she said. "It's one of the smartest, most effective tools that we have to reduce childhood hunger. Parents don't have to complete another application. Schools can spend less time processing paperwork."

But families that lost SNAP because of work requirements or paperwork problems also lose that automatic connection, putting children at risk of falling through the cracks, Kottler said.

Another federal program, Community Eligibility Provision, allows eligible schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students without collecting household information for them, she said. While the Kansas Legislature encouraged eligible schools to enroll in the program this year, if fewer students are directly certified, schools may not be able to participate, Kottler said.

"Federal decisions around SNAP never stop with SNAP," she said. "They reach into our schools. They go into child nutrition and school meals, and our concern is that because of H.R. 1, we very likely could see Kansas schools leave the community eligibility provision or decide not to adopt it at all — not really because the need has disappeared, but because the numbers no longer work."

Community food bank effects

Elizabeth Keever, chief resource officer for Harvesters, said changes in SNAP provisions are felt throughout the state's community food bank system.

"Every day, we see the realities that statistics alone can't really fully capture," Keever said. "And one year after H.R. 1, those realities have become impossible to ignore. We're already seeing more families turning to food pantries for the first time."

Food insecurity was a challenge before the reconciliation bill, but the problem has grown larger since it passed, she said.

"In our region, one in seven people are now experiencing food insecurity, including one in six children," Keever said. "We know this number will continue to rise, and in fact, hunger is the highest that it's been in two decades."

Food banks, she said, were created to respond to emergency needs for families.

"We were never intended to be a long-term substitute for our nation's nutrition security net that was created by the SNAP program," Keever said. "Even before the cuts to H.R. 1, 59% of the 374,000 food insecure neighbors in our service area fell above the qualifying threshold of SNAP while still being food insecure. The truth is that we simply cannot fill the gap."

In the past five years, food costs have increased by 30%, and more recently, transportation costs are up 33%, she said.

"Our charitable food system was built to complement federal nutrition programs, not replace them," Keever said. "SNAP and food banks were always intended to work together."

Courtesy of Kansas Reflector