Growing up, there were times my family struggled to make ends meet. But thanks to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), I never had to worry whether we’d have enough food or if we could afford to see a doctor.

I never even noticed those were concerns for my family until I was older. The stability these programs brought us allowed me to just be a kid and to grow into a stable adult, confident enough to take risks like starting a business and buying a home.

There are many reasons people can’t access enough food — job loss, low wages, disability, illness, price spikes on basic food items, etc. — but no matter what the reason, every kid should be able to grow up like I did. That meant focusing on being a kid, and not on adult things, like how my parents would stretch their next paycheck. No one in our country should go hungry. Nor should anyone go without healthcare because they can’t afford it or can’t complete all the paperwork.

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Medicaid and SNAP laid the groundwork for my future by providing things every child should have — healthcare and nutrition. That put me on track to fulfilling my dream — starting a small business called Eau Claire Outdoors. I’m grateful for these programs and for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which enabled me to get affordable healthcare coverage as an adult when I had an emergency health situation that required immediate attention. When my husband was laid off and we lost our health insurance only weeks after I had a major surgery, the ACA was the only option we had. It was the only way I was able to access the many follow up procedures after my surgery.

My life and ability to succeed were shaped by programs like Medicaid, the ACA, and SNAP. But attacks on these programs from Republicans in Congress will deny millions of other families the same kind of help, denying them the chance I got to succeed. The so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by my representative, Derrick Van Orden, is going to devastate families like mine.

This law will take healthcare away from as many as 16 million people and take food assistance from more than 3 million people, including many kids and seniors, despite decades of fighting poverty and increasing opportunity for millions. It also dramatically increases the cost of ACA coverage because it does not extend the enhanced tax credits that make the coverage affordable for more people. Failure to renew the tax credits will raise costs for enrollees by hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on age and location. Millions of people will lose coverage altogether, and the number of uninsured people in Wisconsin will rise significantly, creating massive hardship.

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Yet, Republicans extended tax breaks for wealthy households and instituted new tax loopholes for large corporations. The bill cuts nearly a trillion out of healthcare and food assistance and adds more than $3 trillion to the deficit to extend Trump’s tax breaks that mainly benefit millionaires, billionaires, and Wall Street corporations.

This law is a bad deal for average Americans and a betrayal of the values and priorities that most people support. I’m living proof that Medicaid and SNAP are good investments that help strengthen and build our country for the future. I can’t imagine what kind of adult I would be today without them, or without the Affordable Care Act, which provided me with health care when I needed it most. Rep. Derrick Van Orden betrayed Wisconsinites like me — all to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy few.

Kate Felton opened her business, Eau Claire Outdoors, in 2023 after a decade of work advocating for the protection of Wisconsin’s natural resources. As a Wisconsin native and avid adventurer, she insists that Wisconsin’s landscape is just as beautiful, exciting, and worthy of adventure as anywhere you’ll find out west! And as a business owner, Kate believes we all have a responsibility, including businesses, to protect the Wisconsin we love, both the people who live here and our beautiful natural resources that we rely on and recreate in.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer and at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social.

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