The Truth About "one big beautiful bill" (OBBBA) and Disabled Americans

🔊 Episode Summary:

On July 4th, 2025, Donald Trump signed what he calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA) into law. While it’s being touted as a historic win, the truth beneath the headlines reveals a devastating reality—especially for disabled individuals, caregivers, and working-class families. This episode breaks down what’s actually in the bill, who gets hurt, and who profits.

From over $900 billion in Medicaid cuts to $285 billion in food assistance reductions, we expose how the bill’s “reforms” are designed to strip away the very programs that help people live independently, with dignity. We cover expanded work requirements, punishing paperwork traps, the illusion of “no tax on tips,” and the permanent tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy—all while disabled people are pushed toward poverty, hunger, and institutionalization.

🔍 Key Topics Covered:

• 💔 Medicaid Cuts: Over $900B in cuts that will devastate access to healthcare, HCBS, and force many into institutions.
• 📄 Punishing Paperwork: Monthly documentation traps for people with cognitive or mental health disabilities.
• 💼 Work Requirements: Disabled people not officially classified as “permanently disabled” now forced to meet impossible standards.
• 🍽️ SNAP Cuts: $285B slashed from food assistance, with new work rules threatening the food security of disabled individuals and caregivers.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Caregivers Penalized: Parents of disabled children and family caregivers risk losing benefits if they can't meet work requirements.
• 🏥 Rural Hospital Closures: Medicaid cuts mean less coverage, more uncompensated care, and a death spiral for rural healthcare access.
• 🏡 Housing Crisis Deepens: Medicaid waivers help fund accessible housing—cutting them pushes people toward homelessness or institutions.
• to remove taxation on tips.
• 💸 Who Wins?: Permanent tax cuts for the top 1%, corporations, and billionaire heirs.
• 📉 Who Loses?: Disabled people, rural communities, low-income families, and working-class Americans.
• 🧠 Mental Health Impact: Disrupted access to medication, therapy, and community care leads to higher costs, crisis, and suffering.
• 🌍 Environmental Justice & Accessibility Grants: Eliminated in OBBBA—programs supporting inclusive employment and green jobs are gone.

🗣️ Expert Voices Featured:

• Zoe Gross (ASAN): “These cuts could kill people.”
• Michelle Robbins-Garcia (Access Living): “If Medicaid or home healthcare services are cut, [disabled people] won’t be able to go to work.”
• Kelly PeLong (Disability Network Mid-Michigan): “A responsible budget shouldn’t come at the expense of people with disabilities.”
• Nancy Gardiner (CT Insider): “Almost 279,000 CT residents could lose health insurance. This isn’t reform—it’s a betrayal.”

📢 Call to Action:

This is not just another policy shift—it’s a moral line in the sand.

✅ Call your representatives.

✅ Share this episode.

✅ Sign petitions from groups like The Arc, ADAPT, NDRN, and DREDF.

✅ Speak out—online and in your community.

🧠 Because silence is complicity. And we rise together—or not at all.

🔗 Resources & Links:

• The Arc – Take Action
• ADAPT
• NDRN
• Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – Tax Policy
• Connecticut Insider Article – Nancy Gardiner

📌 Hashtags to Share:

#OneBigBetrayal

#SaveMedicaid

#DisabilityRightsAreHumanRights

#CuttingCareKills

#TaxBreaksVsLifelines

🎧 Listen, Share, Act

This isn’t about politics—it’s about survival. Let’s make sure the truth gets louder than the spin.

Sources:

Axios

NYTimes

Office of the State Comptroller NYState

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)

Kaiser Family Foundation

Social Security Works

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

National Disability Rights Network

Dept. of Energy

Justice40 Initiative

EP Environmental Justice Programs

Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities

The Arc

ADAPT

Website:

specialedrising.com