(C) El Paso Matters.org
This story was originally published by El Paso Matters.org and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Opinion: Congress shouldn’t make life harder for El Paso, West Texas families [1]
['Special To El Paso Matters', 'El Paso Matters', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-05-23
By Trudy Taylor Smith
We send people to Washington to deliver solutions to the problems facing Texas families, not to make those problems worse. But Congress is currently considering legislation that threatens the health, economic advancement and financial stability of local families in El Paso and the Texas borderlands.
Trudy Taylor Smith
Funding cuts proposed in this legislation would take food and health care away from children and their families. Fortunately, West Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales and the rest of our state’s congressional delegation still have time to avoid this threat.
As Congress takes up a wide-ranging budget reconciliation bill, proposals advanced by extremist lawmakers close to President Donald Trump pose a danger to El Paso’s immigrant families, the community’s health, and state and local budgets.
Roughly 95,000 people in the El Paso area, or Texas’ 16th Congressional District, rely on Affordable Care Act coverage to access affordable health coverage. Congressional Republicans have indicated they may take away ACA coverage from some people with lawful immigration statuses, which could threaten health care access for green card holders and many other immigrants who are lawfully living and working in Texas.
While Texas families would be the hardest hit, these proposals would also pose grave consequences for our state’s health care providers and state and local budgets.
According to KFF analysis, proposed cuts of $880 billion to federal Medicaid funding could drain $60 billion from Texas’ health care economy over the next decade. This could lead to the closure of many of Texas’ 71 community health centers.
Three federally funded health center organizations exist in the El Paso area, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. They serve almost 41,000 local patients annually.
These community health centers represent just a small subset of the many health care facilities at risk, including hospitals and health departments. Moreover, denying federal funding does not mean Texas families no longer need health care. It simply shifts the costs of care to state and local taxpayers.
These are not the only threats affecting Texans’ health. The reconciliation package may also deny the Child Tax Credit to U.S. citizen children, based on their parents’ immigration status. Additionally, it may sharply cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food for the more than 51,000 households in the El Paso area who participate in the program.
Denying families access to food and other basics will increase health care needs even as the reconciliation policies deny those same families access to care.
These proposals have two things in common: they stack the deck against hardworking people who contribute to El Paso’s economic and cultural vitality, and they make problems like hunger, poverty, homelessness and unmet health care needs worse.
The stakes for Texans are incredibly high, and these decisions will have consequences for generations. As our state’s leaders consider the choices they face as Congress debates budget reconciliation, we at Children’s Defense Fund-Texas urge them to remember their primary responsibility to their constituents is to protect our interests. Nothing is more foundational to the ability of youth to thrive than access to health care.
In a border state like Texas, where one in every three children lives with a foreign-born parent and immigrants make up nearly one quarter of our state’s workforce, protecting public health means preserving access to health care for immigrants and their families.
While we’re pleased to learn El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar voted against the budget reconciliation bill when it came up in her committee last week, our focus now turns to Rep. Gonzales, who we hope will do the same when the bill comes to final passage. His district includes parts of El Paso County and how he decides to vote on this bill will have direct implications for the people of El Paso.”
Rep. Gonzales recently wrote a letter to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson urging congressional leadership not to slash funding to critical programs like Medicaid. I applaud him for opposing deep cuts to the essential programs Texas communities rely on.
Given that around one in every six of his constituents are foreign-born and approximately one out of every five children in his district live below the poverty line, I urge Rep. Gonzales to continue defending the health and well-being of his constituents by ensuring these programs remain accessible to immigrants and their families.
Trudy Taylor Smith is senior administrator of policy and advocacy at Children’s Defense Fund-Texas.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/05/23/opinion-cuts-to-health-care-and-food-assistance-hurt-el-paso/
Published and (C) by El Paso Matters.org
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/elpasomatters/
