Senate Votes to Approve Even More Significant Cuts to Medicaid, Further Jeopardizing Services for People with I/DD

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, the Senate voted to approve the passage of the FY 2025 budget reconciliation bill which would slash nearly $1 trillion from federal Medicaid funding—extreme cuts that would harm people with disabilities and the provider networks that support them. In response to the vote, ANCOR released the following statement:

“For weeks, we hoped the Senate’s reconciliation bill would retreat from the devastating Medicaid cuts passed by the House in H.R. 1. What we got instead was a bill that increased harmful reductions that will devastate people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD).

“Rather than scaling back the House’s $715 billion in cuts, the Senate bill goes further—slashing provider taxes and state-directed payments that states rely on to fund critical services and squeezing an additional $215 billion more from Medicaid. These additional cuts will push already-strained state budgets to the breaking point.

“Lawmakers claim these Medicaid reductions won’t affect disability services. This is false. When federal Medicaid funding shrinks, states invariably cut optional programs first—and under federal law, the Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) program is considered optional. This means the services that keep people with I/DD in their communities, and out of institutions, will be eliminated first.

“The human cost is perhaps more staggering than the financial costs: over 500,000 people with I/DD are already trapped on states’ waiting lists to receive HCBS services, unable to access what they need to live independently. These proposed cuts will make that crisis exponentially worse.

“As this legislation must now go back to the U.S. House of Representatives for final passage, we call on all House members to reject any budget proposal that cuts federal Medicaid funding. The lives and well-being of people with I/DD literally depends on it.”

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