Husted’s Economic Agenda is Hurting Farmers, Threatening Access to Health Care & School Meals for Kids

Husted's Economic Agenda is Hurting Farmers, Threatening Access to Health Care & School Meals for Kids

September 12, 2025

Columbus, Ohio - Reporting this week exposes the toll Senator Husted's support for chaotic trade wars is taking on Ohio farmers, while Husted's vote to cut Medicaid is threatening school children's access to free school meals and making dental care less accessible.

Here's what Ohioans across the state are reading:

Statehouse News Bureau: Ohio farmers are feeling the dual pain of uncertain tariffs and unreliable weather

• Agriculture is considered Ohio's number-one industry. One out of every eight jobs in the Buckeye State is tied to the agriculture industry. As farmers prepare to harvest their crops, many are concerned they'll take a hefty hit due to tariffs and weather conditions.

• The Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, Ty Higgins, said […] tariffs are also impacting farmers, especially those who grow soybeans.

• "China has not bought anything from U.S. farmers this year and it wasn't long ago that a third of the soybeans we grew here in Ohio went directly to China so there's a lot of market share that we are missing."

• Higgins said it is also costing farmers more for the supplies, which are often imported, that they need to produce their crops.

News 5 Cleveland: New SNAP, Medicaid rules could cost many kids free school meals

• Recent changes tightening eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid could leave hundreds of thousands of families without benefits. As a result, the School Nutrition Association warns, many children could lose automatic access to free school meals.

WOUB: Dental care isn't accessible in much of southeast Ohio. Medicaid cuts could make matters worse.

• […] the southeast region of Ohio is a federally designated dental health professional shortage area, meaning there aren't enough dentists for the people living there.

• Now, federal cuts to Medicaid passed in July as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act have advocates concerned that those access problems will only get worse.

• A disproportionate number of patients in Appalachian Ohio rely on Medicaid for their dental care compared to rates statewide. Advocates worry that coverage could be threatened by millions of dollars in federal Medicaid cuts signed into law in July.

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