With providers on edge regarding massive cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, the White House officially released its budget proposal on Friday, which includes a $674 million reduction in funding for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which controls government health insurance programs critical to the home-based care community.

While the Trump administration claimed the cuts won’t affect Medicare or Medicaid beneficiaries directly, the announcement triggered concern from home-based care advocates.

“This cut will have no impact on providing benefits to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries,” the proposed budget read. “The budget eliminates funding that had been used to carry out non-statutory, wasteful and woke activities while maintaining funding for core Medicare and Medicaid operations, such as ending unnecessary DEI and support contracts. It eliminates health equity-focused activities and Inflation Reduction Act-related outreach and education activities.”

Advocacy groups have been outspoken about the dangerous implications of Medicaid cuts to the home-based care industry. LeadingAge, an advocacy group representing over 5,400 nonprofit providers of aging services, said the proposed budget would likely be detrimental to care providers of older adults.

“We continue to review the White House’s 2026 fiscal budget plan released this morning,” Linda Couch, senior vice president of policy at Leading Age, said in an email to HHCN. “The administration’s request removes the ‘draft’ stamp from the damaging [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] (HHS) leaked budget mid-April and solidly calls into question how our federal health agency can cut more than 26% of its funding without harming older adults and the providers who serve them. As more details emerge in the coming weeks, we expect to have more insight. However, even in ‘skinny’ form, these proposals are hard to read, hard to imagine and hard to stomach.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Health Again initiative will receive $500 million under the new budget, which “would allow the Secretary to tackle nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.”

“Slashing one-third of the HHS budget is reckless and will certainly cause harm to Americans across the country,” Kathleen Sebelius, former HHS Secretary and Governor of Kansas, stated in response to a leaked copy of the proposed budget in mid-April. “Candidly, I never dreamed that this level of destruction to critical American health systems would ever be proposed.”

The proposed non-defense discretionary budget falls $163 billion below 2025 levels, a reduction of 22.6%, according to a letter sent to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations by Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Sara Wilson, president and CEO of Home Assist Health, told Home Health Care News in early April that substantial reductions in Medicaid spending would worsen an already unsteady status quo for home-based care providers.

“Our services are already underfunded and further reductions could limit access to essential care, putting health and well-being of our communities at risk,” she said. “Without strategic planning and collaboration with industry stakeholders, broad cuts could result in unintended consequences, including higher health care costs and worsening health outcomes.”

Phoenix, Arizona-based Home Health Assist provides non-medical, home-based services to children, adults and older adults with disabilities or age-related challenges.