New Fact Sheet from Families USA Highlights Importance of Medicaid for VA-02’s Families
For Immediate Release: April 28, 2025
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – A new fact sheet from Families USA details the impacts of deep cuts to the Medicaid program in the Republican budget that Rep. Kiggans voted for, which would have devastating consequences for the health and economic security of Hampton Roads. Virginia’s Medicaid Program, Cardinal Care, provides health care coverage for more than 124,000 residents, according to the fact sheet.
“Americans have been showing up in townhalls, calling their representatives in Congress and demanding that Republicans in Washington stop their plan to massively cut the health care that Americans want and need,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “Deep cuts to Medicaid would be devastating for Virginia residents, resulting in significant coverage losses, forcing rural hospitals, long-term care facilities or community clinics to close or scale back services, and throwing state budgets into crisis. We should all be asking every member of Congress who voted for this budget why they are willing to harm working families in their own district just to pay for a tax break for billionaires.”
“Everyone needs to be able to have affordable health care – to have healthcare that is accessible. And a lot of people, hundreds and thousands of people, have received that through Medicaid Expansion and we have to make sure that it stays,” said Patrice Smallwood, Secretary of the Virginia Organizing State Governing Board. “I want to ask Congresswoman Kiggans from Virginia Organizing and all the spaces we represent…’How can reform improve a system by cutting people out of that system? It can’t! How can a reform improve Virginia when it is built on exclusion and not inclusion? The answer is it cannot.”
Medicaid is a lifeline for Hampton Roads:
- 124,700 residents — 16% of all residents in VA-02.
- 23,100 children — 13% of all children living in VA-02.
- 11,600 seniors and people with disabilities have Medicaid coverage.
Families in Virginia already struggle to pay for health care:
- 78% of people living in Virginia are worried about affording health care.
- 36% of people living in Virginia struggled to pay medical bills.
- 46% of people living in Virginia skipped needed care due to cost.
Families USA and Virginia Organizing are advocating in Virginia and across the
nation to protect Medicaid from severe cuts, caps or other regulations that will result in
millions of Americans losing access to the health care they need. Earlier this year, Families USA led hundreds of organizations to call on Congress and the Trump administration to reject cuts to Medicaid and work to make health care more affordable, not less.
For additional resources, see Families USA’s fact sheets on how work reporting requirements would undermine access to Medicaid, how cuts harm families and communities, and the overall importance of Medicaid to people, the economy and the health care system.
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Families USA, a leading national voice for health care consumers, is dedicated to the achievement of high quality, affordable health care and improved health for all.
Virginia Organizing is a non-partisan statewide grassroots organization that brings people together to create a more just Virginia.
