KENNEWICK, Wash. – During his trip to the Tri-Cities, Governor Bob Ferguson expressed concerns about proposed Medicaid cuts.
Earlier in the day, the governor met with healthcare industry leaders and community members affected by the proposed cuts. These cuts are part of President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ aiming to reduce Medicaid spending to offset tax breaks.
Governor Ferguson emphasized the potential consequences for many residents.
“Most of our Medicaid dollars come from the federal government. So, what that would mean is about 200,000 folks, many of your viewers or their kids, would lose access to Medicaid,” said Governor Ferguson. “So, it’d be pretty hard to overstate how significant this could be.”
When asked about what his administration would do if the cuts were made, he said there’s only so much the state can do.
“A cut of the magnitude that Congress is looking at… The state doesn’t have the budget to backfill that,” said Ferguson. “This is billions of dollars impacting hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians and many, many kids. So we do the best we can. But there’s no backfill to solve that problem.”
The budget bill is currently in the Senate, with the GOP working to gain support from Republican holdouts.
