Pediatrician: Cuts To Safety Net Programs Will Hurt The Youngest Minnesotans

By Diana Cutts, Minnesota Reformer

November 18, 2025

As a pediatrician and researcher, I’ve had the privilege of providing care for thousands of young patients at Hennepin Healthcare for more than three decades. I’ve also had a front-row seat to study and observe how policy decisions affect child and caregiver health.

Very soon, the enhanced premium tax credits of the Affordable Care Act — which lower health care premiums, in turn helping families to afford health insurance — will be taken away from families. I am alarmed by this development because I know it puts the health of children and families across Minnesota at risk.

Last month, more than 90,000 Minnesotans who use MNsure for their insurance, including patients I serve, started to receive letters notifying them that their premiums for next year will increase dramatically. For example, premiums for a family of four making $66,000 per year will rise from $1,452 to an estimated $4,477. That’s a 300% increase in one year. No family can afford that.

With high costs of living and stagnating wages, these premium hikes will put health care out of reach for many families. My research with Children’s HealthWatch has shown that forgoing preventive care leads to more expensive emergency room care down the road.

The persistent, large-scale strain on the health care system from millions of people suddenly losing coverage will, in turn, increase health care costs for everyone, not just those with MinnesotaCare or Medicaid.

These price shocks are paired with uncertainty surrounding many programs my patients rely on to meet their basic needs, including nutritional assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, as well as programs that help cover the costs of utilities, like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Losing access to these vital supports strains household budgets, forcing families into toxic choices between going to the doctor, paying for prescriptions, skipping meals or forgoing other basic needs like rent, utilities or car payments.

In our clinics and emergency departments, we see how health care is so tightly related to other needs. I am already hearing from my patients, who are anxious about how they will buy groceries with the impending cuts to SNAP benefits passed by Congress this summer, which will cause some families to lose access to the program entirely. When SNAP is disrupted — even in the short term — families are significantly more likely to face food insecurity, and parents and children are more likely to be in poor health.

There is no “pause” button for health care access in the lives of infants and toddlers. The costs of the expiring tax credits will not wait, and they will not be abstract. They will be borne by the bodies and futures of my patients — our youngest Minnesotans.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..