SNAP and Medicaid Cuts Put Bakersfield in Political, Economic Crosshairs

Emelia Reed has a front-row seat to the critical safety-net needs of Central Valley residents in her role as a student assistant at California State University, Bakersfield’s food pantry.

The pantry serves students and staff who need groceries like rice or milk — or even just a can of tuna or beans for a quick meal. It’s also an on-ramp for more reliable food aid: at checkout, patrons are asked if they would like to enroll in CalFresh, the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The signup connects patrons with a campus basic needs coordinator who helps with their enrollment.

“A lot of communities in Bakersfield are multi-generational households, so you’ll have a student who is a parent and then also lives with their mother-in-law,” Reed said. “You get that three generations in one household, and that’s what will stress the food security in that home.”

A Bakersfield native, Reed said she views the commuter-heavy Cal State campus as a microcosm of the daily struggles facing Kern County residents.

“I see it as a reflection of my community,” she said. “And I know that the community is food insecure.”

Few places in California will feel the squeeze of recently approved federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid — the nation’s low-income healthcare program — more than Bakersfield and its surrounding communities. The fallout from those cuts, enacted as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, could play a key role in next year’s election for the 22nd Congressional District seat held by Republican Rep. David Valadao, who voted for the legislation.

The bill paired an extension of personal and business income tax cuts and funding for immigration enforcement with reductions in health care and food assistance spending.

The 22nd District, which includes much of Bakersfield and cities to the north such as Delano, Porterville and Tulare, is heavily reliant on social safety-net programs.

Two-thirds of residents in the district are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program — more than any other congressional district in the state, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

The California Budget & Policy Center found that 27% of residents in the district receive nutrition assistance through CalFresh, the second-highest total of any district in the state.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce federal SNAP spending by tightening exemptions for work requirements and requiring states to pick up a larger share of the program’s cost. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that nearly 370,000 Californians are at risk of losing food stamp benefits because of the changes in work requirements.

Even deeper cuts are coming to Medicaid. The bill includes new requirements for recipients to prove they are working, volunteering or attending school, along with new limits on provider taxes — mechanisms that states such as California use to fund their Medicaid programs. Nonprofit health research group KFF estimates that California will lose 19% of its federal Medicaid funding over the next decade — a total of $164 billion.

“Fewer people are going to have health insurance coverage, because the amount of money that’s available to finance that coverage has been cut at the federal level,” said Kristof Stremikis, director of market analysis and insight at the California Health Care Foundation. “The insurance that people have is going to be less comprehensive, and so with less money available, you just cannot cover as many services.”

The fate of hospitals in rural areas such as the Central Valley is a particular concern, Stremikis said. Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia receives more than 30% of its revenue from Medi-Cal. It’s not only the largest hospital in Tulare County — it’s also the largest employer.

In addition to the limits on eligibility and provider taxes, the bill also reduces the amount that hospitals can be reimbursed for treating certain undocumented immigrants, such as single adults making up to $21,597 a year.

“Providers are going to get paid less,” Stremikis said. “When there’s less money in the system, there’s just less money to pay hospitals, health systems, nursing homes, physicians’ offices.”

In a statement, Valadao defended his vote in support of the bill, citing a new $50 billion fund for rural hospitals and promising to “engage with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] to identify specific risks to Valley hospitals and mitigate them.”

“Ultimately, I voted for this bill because it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients — children, pregnant women, the disabled and elderly,” Valadao said.

“The bill also includes dozens of other policy provisions that directly benefit CA-22, including blocking the largest tax hike on working families in American history, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, expanding the Child Tax Credit, enhancing deductions for seniors, and keeping provisions in place that double the standard deduction for over 90% of taxpayers in my district,” he added.

Republicans are hoping the tax benefits of the bill will allow the party to build on the gains it made in the 22nd District in last year’s election.

In 2024, Trump improved his showing in the district by 19 points over 2020, the largest shift in California. With the highest share of Latino voters and the lowest share of college graduates of any seat in the state, the 22nd fits the mold of communities across the country that gravitated toward the GOP last year.

But Democratic consultant Jeff Gozzo said the budget bill will come back to haunt Republicans in the Central Valley next year.

“I can’t understate how enormous of an impact that this Big Beautiful Bill is going to have on races here in California,” Gozzo said. “You’re taking away that opportunity for that working mom in Merced to be able to see their doctor or access that care in Kern County for addiction treatment.”

In a sign of how motivated Democrats are to center the One Big Beautiful Bill vote in the midterms, Dr. Jasmeet Bains, a state Assemblymember, launched her campaign against Valadao last week, wearing a lab coat and stethoscope in a video decrying the health care cuts.

“Nowhere else has this much to lose,” Bains said.