By Ashley Burnside 

July is an important month for the disability community, especially this year. Commonly referred to as Disability Pride Month, July commemorates the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, a hard-fought legislative achievement that provides the disability community with comprehensive civil rights protections. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the ADA’s passage. 2025 also represents the 60th anniversary of the Medicaid program, which provides life-saving health care for millions of people. People with disabilities have fought for decades to achieve basic civil rights protections, including access to public spaces, public education, adequate health care, and more. 

Amid these celebrations, this month also marks the passage of a law that will cause great harm for people with disabilities: President Trump’s budget reconciliation law. This new law will result in disabled people losing health care and nutrition assistance. 

During Disability Pride Month, lawmakers should be investing in and celebrating the disability community, not stripping away public benefits that help people afford food, remain healthy, and live in their homes and communities. The reconciliation law will restrict access to health care and food for the disability community, despite false claims from lawmakers to the contrary.  

The Reconciliation Law Will Cut Medicaid Access   

Medicaid provides life-saving services and care for people with disabilities throughout the nation. Fifteen million people with disabilities use Medicaid, representing 1 in 3 disabled people. Unfortunately, the reconciliation law will make devastating cuts to Medicaid, ultimately leaving just over 10 million people uninsured, including people with disabilities.  

One of the changes the law will make is adding work reporting requirements to Medicaid for the expansion population of at least 80 hours per month, which will create red tape for millions of people trying to enroll in Medicaid and for Medicaid recipients. Research has repeatedly found that while work reporting requirements do nothing to improve employment, they do create bureaucratic complexity for recipients and state agencies. 

Lawmakers have claimed that people with disabilities will be exempt from the work reporting requirements. But unfortunately, disabled people will inevitably be included in these mandates, and will lose their health insurance unless they can meet the paperwork requirements. Some disabled people qualify for Medicaid due to their disability status, typically having severe health conditions that meet a strict definition of being disabled. People in this category should be exempt from work reporting requirements, but in reality, that will depend on how well states implement the policy.  

There are also many people with disabilities who qualify for Medicaid through other pathways because their disability is not deemed ‘severe enough’ to qualify them through the disability eligibility criteria. Most people in this category will qualify for Medicaid through Medicaid expansion. In the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid, people may qualify if they have dependent children at home and extremely low incomes, but are likely to not be insured. 

People with disabilities who qualify for Medicaid through their state’s Medicaid expansion but are unable to work 80 hours per month due to their disability will need to prove their disability makes them exempt from the work reporting requirement, a process that requires time, money, appointments, and paperwork. They will likely have to reprove their disability every six months.    

Disabled people who can work and qualify for Medicaid through their state’s Medicaid expansion could face further problems if they have a chronic disability that makes it harder for them to work continuously, or during medical episodes. For example, a cashier may be able to work 80 hours one month but then be unable to work that many hours the following month if they have a chronic pain flare-up that prevents standing for longer shifts. This person might lose their Medicaid eligibility because they were unable to meet the 80-hour requirement every single month. And because recipients can’t average the number of hours worked across multiple months, someone who could only work 70 hours one month can’t ensure they remain eligible by working 90 hours the next. The ways that disabilities impact people are often not “one size fits all,” and that will make meeting such an inflexible work reporting requirement impossible for some people.  

The indirect results of the Medicaid cuts will also harm members of the disability community who rely on medical care from hospitals and clinics. If hospitals lose federal funding and are forced to close, this will disproportionately affect those who may be unable to drive further distances to get the care they need, especially if they live somewhere without public transportation.  

Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) are a crucial Medicaid service for disabled people but are not required by federal statute. One area that states may explore is cutting these services, including reducing payments to care providers or not enrolling people who are stuck on waiting lists.    

Disabled immigrants will also be cut off from health care due to the reconciliation law. Previously, lawfully present immigrants who were ineligible for Medicaid due to their immigration status could enroll in marketplace coverage if they earned under 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. The new law terminates this coverage, as well as other opportunities for Medicaid, Medicare, and Children’s Health Insurance Program access for certain populations of immigrants. 

Collectively, all the Medicaid cuts—including key financing changes—will leave states with fewer federal Medicaid dollars and force states to cut their Medicaid programs.  

The Reconciliation Law Will Strip Access to Food 

The reconciliation law will also make devastating cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), ending nutrition assistance for an estimated 5 million people. Disabled people are likelier to face food insecurity than people without disabilities, and about 4 million SNAP non-elderly recipients identified as being disabled in 2023. People with disabilities will be cut off SNAP due to the stricter work reporting requirements unless they prove they can meet an exemption, which can be burdensome and time-consuming.   

The new law will also require states to spend more of their own revenue to fund the SNAP program, meaning states will either need to make cuts to the program, remove recipients, eliminate SNAP altogether, or make other cuts in their state budget to critical programs, such as child care or education. Some disabilities require specialty diets that are more expensive, meaning disabled people could be especially harmed if states implement such cost-saving measures. 

We Must Commit to Advocating for Policies that Allow Disabled People to Thrive 

During Disability Pride Month and every month of the year, we must celebrate our progress toward access, equity, and justice for the disability community while also acknowledging areas where improvements are needed. People with disabilities deserve health care, food, and housing and the chance to thrive in their communities with their loved ones, just like everyone else. The recent reconciliation law will be a major setback for the disability community. Lawmakers at the state and federal level should invest in people with disabilities through fully funding HBCS, removing work reporting requirements in the Medicaid and SNAP programs, and ensuring that all people have access to adequate health care and nutrition, regardless of their income or ability status.