key takeaway
Many provisions in the harmful Republican megabill, H.R. 1, and the 2025-26 California state budget will directly reduce federal and state funding for Medi‑Cal and CalFresh, putting millions of Californians at risk of losing health care coverage and food assistance.
The recently enacted Republican megabill, H.R. 1, includes the largest funding cuts to health care and food assistance in US history, threatening to destabilize California’s health care system and exacerbate food insecurity.
According to the California Health and Human Services Agency, H.R. 1 could cause up to 2 million Californians to lose their Medi-Cal — California’s Medicaid program — coverage, and cost the state “tens of billions” of dollars in federal funding every year. H.R. 1 could also cost California between $2.3 billion and $5.1 billion annually and put more than 3 million households at risk of losing some or all of their food assistance due to cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California.
The federal law undermines Medi-Cal and CalFresh in various ways. Several provisions will directly eliminate federal dollars that flow through the state budget to fund these programs, while also introducing new eligibility and access barriers that make it harder for Californians with low incomes to access Medi-Cal and CalFresh.
In addition to the federal changes, the 2025-26 state budget enacted various cuts to the Medi-Cal program that will compound the harm to Californians in need.
The table below displays a timeline of the upcoming cuts to CalFresh and Medi-Cal introduced by H.R. 1 and the recent state budget.
Alissa Anderson, Scott Graves, and Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto contributed to this publication.
