Babydog and You

It's a dog's life. But in the case of Jim Justice's English bulldog Babydog, beloved by West Virginians, she's got it better than a lot of us, thanks to the federal funding cuts that Justice has voted for in the U.S. Senate.

Baby's dog's food access and you:

Babydog’s three favorite things? Wendy’s chicken nuggets, riding shotgun in a Suburban with her dad, and napping. Sure must be nice to be riding up to the drive-through window at Wendy’s in that fancy new Suburban. Lucky for her, she doesn’t need food stamps to cover those nuggets, because her dad, Senator Jim Justice, just voted for a bill that could put a world of hurt on families who do.

According to Mountain State Spotlight, many SNAP (food stamp) recipients are hard-working people in minimum-wage or part-time jobs, struggling to make ends meet. In West Virginia alone, 16% of residents—277,400 people—rely on food stamps, and nearly 30,000 families with children could lose benefits under this bill.

As reported by the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, the enactment of H.R. 1, the Budget Reconciliation Bill, supported by all four members of West Virginia’s Congressional Delegation, cements the largest cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food assistance in our nation’s history. While the legislation is federal, its effects will be hyper-local, impacting families, food pantries, and healthcare clinics, as well as state economies and budgets, although many of the provisions are phased in over a long period.

Senator Justice says the cuts will tackle “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Or as Senator Capito has said, those who lose help are “the people that don’t deserve a benefit to begin with.” Try telling that to kids who will go hungry.

Of course, you know that you can’t get Wendy’s nuggets with food stamps anyway, and if you could, those 10-piece nuggets at $5.49 are about to get a lot harder to fit into the family budget.

Babydog’s healthcare and you:

In February 2024, Babydog received great healthcare to repair the first of two torn ACLs and get back on her paws. Luckily for Babydog, her dad could afford the operation, wheel her around in her little wagon during recovery, and pay for all the care she needed.

But here’s the thing: if you’re a regular West Virginian, would you be so lucky?

Currently, Medicaid in West Virginia covers ACL repair and the rehab that follows. This matters because an ACL tear isn’t just a sports injury—it can happen to anyone, from warehouse workers to parents chasing their kids in the yard. Without coverage, that surgery costs an average of $14,000 per leg—and that’s before you even start paying for the months of physical therapy needed to walk normally again.

Yet on July 3, 2025, Senator Jim Justice voted for a bill that would remove this very coverage from as many as 110,000 West Virginians by 2034.

So while Babydog got the care she needed, your knee surgery might mean emptying your savings, going into debt, or living in pain.

Maybe you rely on the ACA Marketplace for health insurance. There’s another storm brewing: the ACA tax credits are set to expire on December 31, 2025—just five months from now.

If Congress doesn’t extend these credits, 67,000 West Virginians will see their premiums rise by an average of 133%—that’s about $1,400 more every single year. For many families in West Virginia, $1,400 isn’t just spare change—that’s a mortgage payment, a car payment, or a whole lot of groceries.

And as if that’s not enough, the same bill Senator Justice supported will make permanent the huge tax breaks that only folks like him—billionaires with sprawling businesses—can truly benefit from.

So, while Babydog’s knees are safe, our health care and our wallets are under attack. Babydog might not need Medicaid or ACA credits, but tens of thousands of us do.

We don’t have to sit back and let this happen. If you care about protecting food access and healthcare for West Virginians, speak out. Call Senator Justice at (202) 224-3954 or (304) 342-5855 and let him know what you think.

Learn more about the Trump administration's recent cuts to grants, programs, and federal jobs that West Virginians rely on:

Tracking DOGE Cuts in West Virginia

"Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump Administration, DOGE, and Congress have taken a “chainsaw” to government grants, programs, and services, though by many metrics, DOGE has actually increased spending and the deficit through the costs of botched firings and rehirings, lost productivity, and hundreds of billions in lost tax revenue annually due to the gutting of the Internal Revenue Service."

West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy

Federal Reconciliation Law Will Have Sweeping Impacts on Health Care and Food Security

"More than $1 trillion in cuts to health care and food assistance barely made a dent in the cost of extending tax cuts, primarily for the nation’s wealthiest households. Eighty percent of the benefits of the legislation go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans. Overall, the package still adds more than $3 trillion to the national debt."

West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy