Taylor Dédé, Ayala: With Medicaid, SNAP on the Chopping Block, What’s the Plan to Help RGV Families?

In April, our Children’s Defense Fund-Texas team hosted a town hall in a Dallas area church to discuss how budget negotiations on Capitol Hill could lead to potential cuts for vital programs, like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The U.S. House passed a budget proposal that could cost Medicaid $800 billion worth of funding, according to the Congressional Budget Office. SNAP could lose up to $300 billion too. And what the U.S. Senate is proposing could end up being worse.

The audience shared with us personal stories as to how those programs have impacted them over the years. 

One woman, Jessie Gunter, said she needed SNAP to help raise two of her great-granddaughters.

“Without these benefits, some people wouldn’t make it,” she said. 

Another person wrote on a postcard, that we planned to send to lawmakers, that Medicaid helped her family when her great niece was recently deathly ill.

“The care she received through Medicaid at a children’s hospital saved her life,” she wrote.

However, as the night unfolded, it became clear the stakes of the ongoing federal budget negotiations in Washington, D.C. are higher than most Texans realize. And, we believe, in the Rio Grande Valley, locals deserve full transparency about what’s on the line and how their lawmakers are representing their needs. 

Much of our audience that night included “navigators” or the individuals who help Texans access the care they need during critical times. That very same group of people, many of whom work in the nonprofit space, have already been battered by proposals in Washington to cut their funding and resources. 

For example, in April, the Food Bank of RGV, in Pharr, told reporters that cuts to United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) programming would impact their ability to be as responsive to community members’ needs as they have in the past. 

Unfortunately, we suspect most Texans haven’t considered that if good Samaritans, like the Food Bank of RGV, lose their funds and resources to support others, there will be fewer organizations around to help their households find food or affordable prenatal or maternal care when times get tough. The safety net that keeps young RGV families from going over a financial cliff keeps getting smaller and smaller. 

And, right now, there’s potential for that very same scenario to play out in the Valley with this budget as hundreds of thousands of locals rely on these services.

In the three Congressional Districts that make up the Rio Grande Valley, TX-15, TX-28, and TX-34, there are more than 578,000 people who rely on Medicaid for their care, according to KFF. Children account for more than half of that number. 

Further, USDA data shows almost two-thirds of the 1.2 million people in Texas who rely on SNAP for their nutritional needs live in the RGV. 

Fortunately, there is still time to prevent this devastating outcome.

As the Senate works through the budget reconciliation process to finalize a plan in conjunction with the House, Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn can reject any proposal that threatens to cut Medicaid and SNAP. We signed on to a letter, published by the Rio Grande Guardian, asking them to protect SNAP just last month. 

When the bill makes its way back to the House, Rep. Monica De La Cruz, TX-15, can make things right and join her local colleagues, Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who initially voted to reject the House proposal that opted to slash Medicaid and SNAP. We were deeply disappointed when Rep. De La Cruz, despite voicing concerns about such cuts, decided to vote in approval of the House’s budget proposal anyway.

We must get the budget right to protect the future of every young person in the Rio Grande Valley and beyond. That includes ensuring navigators, who play a critical role in helping families access care, aren’t further overwhelmed by potential funding cuts. This is an urgent issue. The decisions made on Capitol Hill will shape what lies ahead.

Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned jointly by By Dr. Brandy Taylor Dédé and Amber Ayala of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas. Taylor Dédé serves as the state director of CDF-Texas, which has worked since its founding in 1999 to improve health, education, and personal development outcomes of children in Texas. Ayala serves as CDF-Texas’ Storytelling Coordinator on healthcare campaigns where she elevates and highlights the voices of children, young people, and their families in Texas.

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