Medicaid cuts would devastate healthy foods partnership, Burke-based initiatives

It’s been dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” by Republican lawmakers in Washington, but to some Burke County nonprofits, there’s nothing beautiful about it.

The controversial legislation, which passed the House Thursday morning by a one-vote margin, proposes nearly $1 trillion in cuts from social safety-net programs Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) over the next decade.

For Burke residents who depend on the state’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP), which partners with Morganton nonprofits C2Life Foundation and Burke United Christian Ministries (BUCM) to provide healthy food and care for the disadvantaged, the cuts could prove disastrous.

Thanks in large part to Medicaid funding, the three organizations have developed a symbiotic relationship over the last five years that enables them to offer a unique service to those who need help.

Healthy Opportunities utilizes Medicaid funds to provide non-medical services, such as nutrition, that improve well-being.

Meanwhile, C2Life prepares, packages, and distributes healthy and medically tailored meals, keeping all its work local. Since 2020, C2Life has distributed more than 85,000 meals and works with more than two dozen community partners.

Through the HOP program, BUCM distributes healthy food and gets its case managers into homes, where they can determine what services clients need most.

Chasity Poteat Rice, founder of C2Life; Alice Horton, executive director of BUCM; and Jennifer Caldwell, communications director for Impact Health, the network lead for HOP, sat down last week to talk about the ramifications of losing funding vital to their collective mission.

They did not paint a pretty picture, agreeing with Burke DSS Director Korey Fisher-Wellman’s assertion last week that the loss of Medicaid would have disastrous social and economic effects.

In addition to the proposed federal cuts, the state budget — which was passed by the state house Thursday morning — contains no funding for HOP.

That doesn’t mean all is lost: The final version of the budget could allocate funding for the program, a measure Gov. Josh Stein supports, Caldwell said.

Still, it’s a worrisome prospect.

“Since Friday, when I heard some of the budget concerns, I told Charlie (her husband, the other ‘C’ in C2Life), I was like, I just want to throw up,” Rice said. “I just want to throw up because I just can’t imagine not being able to provide meals to people that need them so badly.”

Caldwell is also concerned. The HOP program has a broad scope, supporting 13,000 people in Western North Carolina.

“For Alice’s organization, Chasity’s organization, and 60 other organizations in our network, that Medicaid funding is just critical for providing a reliable source of income, not only for the organizations there in Burke County, but for organizations across Western North Carolina,” Caldwell said.

BUCM has been a lifeline for the hungry and people experiencing homelessness in Burke since 1975, providing food and a variety of services. The BUCM soup kitchen serves 43,000 meals per year and helps feed 8,000 of Burke County’s 13,000 food-insecure residents.

Through the HOP program, the ministry has been able to expand its coverage. Partnering with HOP has allowed BUCM to serve 1,519 families beyond its normal range of operations.

“The great thing about having this relationship with Impact Health, and with HOP is we are able to expand upon what we do,” Horton said. “The reality is, C2Life started because they wanted to make sure that people had, to some extent, medically tailored meals, or understood how food impacted them. And this is an opportunity for people to get healthy food delivered to them.”

The benefits go beyond alleviating hunger and improving a client’s nutritional intake.

Through firsthand observation, case managers can identify other types of needs.

“I remember a case manager going to a house, and she’s like, well, there’s a hole,” Horton said. “And then, she went to the next bedroom, and she was like, well, there’s an even bigger hole. And you don’t see those things unless you’re in someone’s home, and that makes an impact on how you serve them. And we wouldn’t be able to do that unless we were part of this project.”

Programs like HOP also affect local economies because groups like C2Life use locally sourced food items.

“And those meals are produced here in Burke County,” Rice said. “They’re produced here, packaged here, and shipped to be able to serve the region.”

“We’re not giving you Twinkies and highly processed foods,” Rice added. “We are giving you healthy food options. And I’ve had some people say I’ve never had a sweet potato before or a butternut squash or cauliflower. So, it’s also opening folks up to a new way of eating.”

And it’s working. Caldwell said HOP’s numbers prove the program actually saves Medicaid money.

Letting such a program go by the wayside would be a travesty, she said.

“It’s saving Medicaid $1,000 per person per year on the program,” Caldwell said. “It’s mind-boggling that it wouldn’t continue. It’s making people healthier, we’re seeing fewer visits to the hospital, to the emergency room, and it’s saving Medicaid money. It’s really a no-brainer, and the fact that it’s not being protected and expanded statewide is a bit mind-blowing.”