FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2025
FY Budget 2026: Council Chair Phil Mendelson Joins Committee on Health in Quietly Gutting DC’s Longest-Running Locally-Funded Healthcare Program
Approximately 25,000 Immigrant & Low-Income DC Adults Face Illness and Death — as “Cost-Effective Restructuring” Moves to a Vote TODAY!
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Sunday afternoon, July 13, 2025, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson stood before a small group of journalists at the Wilson Building and confirmed what many advocates had feared: The budget proposal to dismantle DC’s locally funded Healthcare Alliance, which for decades has provided life-saving care to over 25,000 DC residents who are ineligible for federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare, will move to the Council as a whole for a Vote on Monday, July 14.
Mendelson called the decision a “restructuring,” suggesting the move will shift Alliance members into the DC Health Benefit Exchange — the local Affordable Care Act marketplace — in the name of “cost-effectiveness.”
“We hope [former Alliance members] will have similar benefits [in the healthcare marketplace], but be much more cost effective,” said Mendelson.
📺 Watch the presser (22:30 mark): tinyurl.com/mendo-july-13-media-briefing
But Mendelson's optimistic framing before DC's local media conceals devastating truths:
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Undocumented residents can’t legally access ACA or Medicaid, the very program Mendelson says folks from Alliance will be shifted into (with little planning or detail).
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The Council's potential vote to cut this long-running healthcare program aligns with Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which pressures states to eliminate local healthcare programs for immigrants.
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DC leadership is offering no alternatives — They’re cutting healthcare access for the District’s most vulnerable adults — quietly, cruelly, and without a legal fight or push back to the Trump anti-immigrant agenda.
- Some DC politicos, including Mendelson are simultaneously championing spending more than $1.3 Billion public dollars on luxury football stadium costs this same budget season.
Councilmember Christina Henderson, Chair of the Health Committee, has yet to offer ways to defend the adults on Alliance or offer a path forward that is clear for folks destined to be harmed by this surprise and “brutal” budget cut.
Mendelson's proposed changes to Mayor Bowser's FY 2026 Budget goes up for a discussion and first vote, today: https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/932
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