10/24/2025
In 2020, Massachusetts took an extraordinary step: through a federal Medicaid Section 1115 waiver, MassHealth launched the Flexible Services Program — an initiative empowering its 17 Accountable Care Organizations to partner with community nonprofits to deliver “Food Is Medicine” supports like medically tailored meals, grocery deliveries, and nutrition education.
The results were clear. Over three years, the program served more than 20,000 members and was associated with a 23 % reduction in hospitalizations and a 13 % drop in emergency-room visits. Adults enrolled longer than 90 days even generated net savings for the state. Massachusetts proved what public health experts have said for years: food is medicine — and when people can afford to eat, they stay healthier and out of the hospital.
Now, in the midst of a government shutdown, SNAP benefits have been put on the chopping block. For millions of families, that means staring into an empty fridge and making impossible choices — which child eats first, which meal gets skipped, and how to stretch a week’s groceries across two. These are not political abstractions they are realities felt at millions of kitchen tables across the country.
Cutting nutrition assistance doesn’t save money — it shifts the burden to overcrowded emergency rooms and underfunded hospitals, fueling preventable hospitalizations and unnecessary suffering. And it does so at a time when our health-care system is already on life support — with record staffing shortages, closed community hospitals, and emergency departments overwhelmed.
We’re grateful that the Office of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is standing up today and calling on the federal government to keep food-assistance benefits flowing for Massachusetts families during this shutdown.
The governor said more than one million people in Massachusetts will need help finding food next month if the government shutdown continues.
