Senate Panel Hears Warnings of $3 Billion Federal Health Funding Cut to Massachusetts

BOSTON — February 4, 2026 — Massachusetts Senate panel hears warnings of $3 billion federal health cut and a looming $400 million SNAP penalty. The Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs, chaired by Senator Mark C. Montigny, convened February 4 for a working session with Doug Hauge of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and Evan Horowitz of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts. Hauge estimated that the federal One Big Beautiful reconciliation bill would reduce federal health spending in Massachusetts by roughly $3 billion per year when fully implemented, pushing 250,000 to 300,000 residents off MassHealth or the Health Connector. He warned that the state's current SNAP payment error rate of 14.1 percent — above the 13.34 percent federal threshold — could trigger a cost-sharing penalty of up to $400 million per year as early as FY28. Horowitz told the panel that April 2026 revenues would be strong due to locked-in 2025 capital gains, but called the proposed income tax ballot question — projected to cut state collections by four to five billion dollars annually — "a unique kind of threat to the way we budget," and argued the only effective defense against mass MassHealth disenrollment was integrating state DOR and MassHealth data systems rather than relying on outreach mailers.