Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid and SNAP cuts will be devastating to New Jersey families

Basking Ridge, New Jersey, resident Theresa Luoni said she couldn’t have raised her family without Medicaid. A single mother of 13-year-old twin boys who she said are “profoundly autistic and disabled,” she has been on Medicaid for two years to obtain services for her children.

“We don’t get checks from Medicaid. We get occupational therapy, speech therapy, prescriptions so that I can get diapers for my 13-year-old who still needs to wear them at night. Formula to supplement for my son who has an eating disorder,” she told the New Jersey Independent in an interview.

In January, her kids got sick, and without Medicaid, she said, she wouldn’t have been able to get them the health care they needed.

“At the time, because I’m a single mom living in poverty, my budget is already — there’s nothing to cut. I don’t have leftovers or extras,” she said. “They both had pneumonia and I had 17 cents in my bank account to last me four days.”

She recalled standing in the parking lot of the pharmacy and crying after she went to pick up antibiotics for her children. “If there were copays, I would not have been able to afford their medication,” Luoni said.

Luoni is just one of the estimated hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans likely to lose their health care coverage after President Donald Trump signed his budget, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, into law on July 4. The law is expected to hurt the most vulnerable New Jersey families with its deep cuts to and onerous restrictions on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

It passed 51-50 in the Senate on July 1, with all but two Republicans in favor and Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. Two days later, the House of Representatives passed it 218-214, also mostly along party lines.

It is estimated that the law will cut more than $1 trillion in health care funding and $285 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years, while adding about $3.3 trillion to the national debt over that same period.

The law also places additional eligibility requirements on those who use these programs. For Medicaid, the law mandates that beneficiaries prove they are working or attending school at least 80 hours a month. For SNAP, the law ends work requirement exemptions for veterans, children aging out of foster care, parents with children older than 15, and others. It also raises the work requirement exemption age for adults from 54 to 64.

The Medicaid work requirements go into effect Dec. 31, 2026, after the 2026 midterm elections. The adjustments to SNAP requirements could go into effect as early as this year. Funding cuts for both will be effective in 2028.

The cuts in the law shift the burden of paying for the programs onto states, and they’re projected to place major strains on New Jersey.

“If approved, the Congressional Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill will have disastrous ramifications for New Jersey families,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a June 30 statement before the law passed. “Hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans stand to lose coverage, and our taxpayers will lose billions in federal resources that should be coming back to our state.”

Information published by the New Jersey Department of Human Services estimated 350,000 New Jerseyans who are eligible for Medicaid could lose health care coverage as a result of the bill, with a $3.3 billion annual cut in funding for hospitals and public health, as well as a $360 million annual cut to the state’s budget due to reductions in federal money.

The Department of Human Services also said in a separate fact sheet that New Jersey won’t be able to absorb SNAP cuts painlessly, and while it did not share specific numbers, it believes benefit reductions, cuts to other programs or increased taxes will be necessary. It estimates the new law will cost the state anywhere from $100 million to $300 million, and New Jersey counties will see increased costs of $78 million next year.

More than 800,000 New Jerseyans receive SNAP benefits, according to the department. Nearly half of those are children, almost one-third have a disability, and one-fifth are over the age of 60.

“There are immense, real-world consequences to the spending law advanced by Congress and signed into law by President Trump,” Maggie Garbarino, a spokesperson for Murphy, said in a statement. “This measure cuts billions of federal dollars from life-saving programs, like Medicaid and SNAP, that seek to uplift our most vulnerable community members. Hundreds of thousands of New Jersey’s seniors, children, individuals with disabilities, and families will have their health coverage jeopardized, and many stand to lose the SNAP benefits they rely on to put food on the table.”

Luoni said she feels betrayed by her own government.

“I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship because it’s been nothing but gaslighting from all the representatives who pushed for this bill, supported this bill, wrote this bill and voted for it,” Luoni said. “They keep telling us it’s only to reduce fraud, waste, it’s going to make everything better, the program is going to run better. But then they cut $900 billion from the Medicaid budget with this bill.”

“We’re not getting luxuries or special treatment. We’re getting basic services so that they can function and become contributing members to society,” she said.

Luoni’s own congressman in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., voted for the cuts.

“I would ask him how he can sleep at night knowing that he’s robbing children of their basic human needs of health care, food, and then also putting their right to an education in danger,” Luoni said.