Local safety net organizations are putting pressure on Tennessee’s U.S. Senators, urging them to vote against a proposal that would bring sweeping cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, TennCare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The U.S. House has already passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — a so called mega-bill, which would cut taxes, increase border and military spending and slash spending on social support programs.
Now, it’s under consideration in the Senate.
That’s why the organizations held a demonstration in downtown Nashville, outside of the offices of Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Sen. Bill Hagerty.
“We’re asking that these cuts be rejected — that our senators protect the very people that they were elected to protect,” said Jeannine Carpenter.
She was speaking on behalf of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank, which serves 11 counties in Tennessee and nine in Georgia.
Proposed federal SNAP cuts
The bill includes big cutbacks on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, EBT or food stamps. Under current law, the federal government foots the entire bill for members’ benefits. In Tennessee, that’s about $142 million per month.
Carpenter said many people assume that nonprofits like the food bank could make up the difference, but that’s not the case.
“For every meal we provide, SNAP provides eight,” she said. “So if we take these benefits away, we’re talking about a food-insecure population that cannot be cared for by our current charitable infrastructure.”
Proposed cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act policies
About a quarter of a million Tennesseans could lose their health coverage because of cuts to Medicaid and changes to Affordable Care Act marketplace policies, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and without Medicaid, it’s very likely that I wouldn’t be standing before you today,” Ashley Bell-Siebers, the director for Family Voices of Tennessee, said. “My family couldn’t afford the cancer treatment that I needed, and I likely wouldn’t have gotten it.”
Bell-Siebers also said that the cuts could affect children in the state. She highlighted one who had open-heart surgery as a newborn and now sees 17 specialists, another who survived childhood leukemia and a child who had a major hip operation to be able to walk.
“The proposed cuts to Medicaid will hurt families across Tennessee, directly or indirectly, especially families of children with disabilities who often rely on TennCare for what private insurance simply won’t cover,” she said. “Things like medications, therapies, or in-home nursing care. I know this because I work with hundreds of families across the state that will feel the realities of these cuts.”
There are already nearly 650,000 Tennesseans who have no health coverage, according to KFF. That’s almost 10% of the state’s population. Some of that under-coverage is because the state opted out of expanding Medicaid coverage that would have increased access for low-income workers.The proposed cuts could increase the uninsured rate to 12% in Tennessee. Right now, the national average is 8%.
State SNAP cuts
About 130,000 households with kids could lose some or all of their SNAP benefits, according to the nonpartisan think tank, the Center on Budget Policy Priorities. Carpenter noted those families are already having a hard time, since Tennessee opted out of the summer EBT program this year.
That program served any family that qualified for free free or reduced school lunches, offering $120 per school-aged child. States pitch into that program, but the federal government pays for the bulk of it. So Tennessee invested about $6 million in 2024, and drew down another $77 million, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
“The budget for the state program indicates that fewer than 25,000 children are slated to benefit this summer, which is only 4 percent of the total children that received Summer EBT benefits in 2024 in Tennessee,” the center states.
And the program overall is already poorly managed, argues a class action lawsuit filed earlier this year. The challengers include about a dozen Tennesseans who qualified for benefits. In each case, their applications were wrongfully denied before they spent months in the appeals process. Because of the delays, the plaintiffs had to shift money away from other obligations to pay for food — leading some to being evicted or becoming homeless.
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