Governor Josh Shapiro of Abington Township has been criticizing the Trump administration’s bill which could affect Medicaid and SNAP benefits should it become law.

Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that helps pay for the health care of low-income people and long-term nursing care, has three million enrollees in Pennsylvania, which cost the state roughly $41 billion in 2024. This included a significant portion from the federal government (63.5% in 2022), with the state contributing the remainder, according to the Pennsylvania Health Law Project and the KFF. 

According to his post on X.com, “every single Republican member of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation voted to cut healthcare and food assistance from hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians and speed up the closure of dozens of rural hospitals across our Commonwealth – all while increasing our national deficit by $2.3 trillion.”

The post goes on to note that the bill “shifts $1 billion in food assistance costs from the federal government onto our state budget” and that “at least 140,000 Pennsylvanians” could lose access to SNAP assistance, “over 300,000 Pennsylvanians could lose Medicaid coverage.”

The full post is below:

This morning, every single Republican member of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation voted to cut healthcare and food assistance from hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians and speed up the closure of dozens of rural hospitals across our Commonwealth – all while increasing…

— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) May 22, 2025

According to the Associated Press, Shapiro’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 seeks $2.5 billion more for Medicaid “after budget-makers belatedly realized that the people remaining on Medicaid rolls after the COVID-19 pandemic are sicker than anticipated — and costlier to care for.” Their coverage notes that the state has about $10.5 billion in reserve, “thanks to federal COVID-19 relief and inflation-juiced tax collections over the past few years.”

On Friday, Shapiro visited A. Philip Randolph Career and Technical High School in East Falls where he “spoke bluntly about the losses Pennsylvania would absorb,” The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.

“I really need you to hear me on this,” Shapiro said. “We will not backfill the cuts that come from the federal government. We don’t have the ability to make up the dollars that they’re taking away from Pennsylvania.”

Republicans say the bill’s benefits include preventing a tax hike on most Americans, eliminating taxes and tips on overtime, and boosting border security investments, according to The Inquirer.

“The current language of this legislation will prevent the largest middle-class tax increase in American history,” U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican, said in a statement this week.

On May 15, Shapiro visited the now-closed Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Delaware County with a plan to protect Pennsylvanians’ access to health care “by reforming the way private equity operates in the Commonwealth,” according to a statement.

Shapiro is encouraging the General Assembly to pass the Health System Protection Act, which is designed to “protect our health care system — including hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities — from private equity bad actors who have pillaged our health care system and caused the shuttering of systems across the Commonwealth, and had negative impacts on care and services at others that remained open,” the statement said.

The legislation would:

• Empower the Office of Attorney General to review and, when necessary, block or place conditions on sales involving health care institutions and for-profit buyers. 
• Ban sale-leaseback schemes that drain hospital resources by forcing them to sell their own facilities and rent them back at inflated rates.

Photo: Commonwealth Media Services