Update on Federal Actions

Campus Community,

Early Thursday morning, the House adopted its version of a large tax and spending bill, which now goes to the Senate for its review. A final package will have to be reconciled by both chambers before going to the President.

While this process remains very fluid, it is important to update you on what we know about impacts to the university and those we serve.

You can stay updated by visiting pres.uky.edu/monitoring-federal-changes-2025 for the latest information as we have it. We are working to keep that site up to date, even as details rapidly change. By way of brief summary, here’s what we know today:

Medicaid

• The House package includes billions of dollars in potential changes to the Medicaid program. Medicaid insures about 1.5 million Kentuckians and creates more affordable access to the complex, specialty care we provide at UK HealthCare.
• At UK HealthCare, we’ve been able to use reimbursement from Medicaid to increase our capacity, enabling us to care for thousands more patients in recent years.
• The proposed changes being considered by Congress include, but are certainly not limited to, provisions such as new work eligibility requirements and modifications to co-pays for some populations that access Medicaid. How we are reimbursed by Medicaid for the care we provide also has been closely examined by the Congress.
• The chairman of the committee that oversees Medicaid spending levels — Congressman Brett Guthrie — is a member of the Kentucky delegation from Bowling Green. He has been incredibly open and responsive to our story about the importance of Medicaid to UK and so many of the patients to whom we extend healing and hope.

Agriculture

• The most significant changes to agriculture and farming-related programs that would impact our university relate to a program called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
• SNAP, in short, is a federal program that provides food assistance to low-income individuals and families.
• The Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment administers one of the SNAP programs — SNAP Education or SNAP-Ed — in which our cooperative extension offices across the state work with local health departments to provide nutrition education to families.
• The current proposal would cut funding for SNAP-Ed. We are vigorously working with other allies in the agricultural community to advocate for these important programs. 

Student loans and grants

• Finally, the current legislative package proposes reducing or modifying a number of federally subsidized student loan and grant programs.
• If passed, these proposals could impact access to loans among students and families, cap the amount of money students and families can borrow, impact how soon interest will begin accruing on loans and increase credit hour requirements for Pell Grant recipients.
• Affordability and accessibility have long been key pillars for the university. Through a combination of targeted financial aid, innovative support programs on financial literacy and historically low tuition increases, UK has worked to ensure students have a sustainable four-year financial plan when they arrive on campus. As such, it is important for us to understand these proposed changes.

Many of the issues related to research funding, which we are tracking closely, are not part of this legislative package. We are continuing to advocate every day on those issues as well.

Indeed, on all of these critical matters, our Government Relations team — and other subject matter experts on our campus along with critical allies — have been working closely with lawmakers to tell our story and to describe the impacts of changes to programs.

Rep. Guthrie and the other members of the Kentucky delegation have been important partners as we have discussed our priorities — priorities based on our mission to create and sustain a Kentucky that is healthier, wealthier and wiser.

We have made progress, thanks to the work of so many. But there is still much work to do, and the debate will continue for several more weeks.

We will keep you informed along the way. As always, please return to our website as that will be updated most frequently. Thank you for your interest in these issues and your continued commitment to advance our state in everything that we do.

Eli Capilouto
President