Disabled Minnesotans covered through Medicaid's expansion face, starting January 1, 2027, a rule to log 80 hours a month of work or other activity if none of its exemptions applies to them, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Brad Finstad voted for on July 3, 2025, six weeks after his vote decided the House bill. Federal Medicaid officials put the expected enrollment drop at 2.3 million people for fiscal 2027 alone.
For Medicaid's 12,100 disabled enrollees in Minnesota's 1st District, the next danger is to the services that let them live at home. Finstad cast deciding votes in February and April 2025 for a budget resolution setting an $880 billion savings target for the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, and home and community-based care, an optional benefit, is the kind most exposed when budgets tighten.
Brad Finstad's Votes on Medicaid Work Rules and Disability Services
- Disabled Adults in Minnesota's Medicaid Expansion Group Will Have to Prove an Exemption or Log Work Hours, a Rule in the 2025 Law Finstad Voted For. Brad Finstad voted yes on H.R. 1 twice: the House margin on May 22, 2025 was 215 to 214, and the final law cleared it 218 to 214 on July 3, 2025. Starting by January 1, 2027, adults in Medicaid's expansion group will owe the state a monthly report of 80 hours spent working, volunteering, training or in school unless an exemption applies. The law's medically frail exemption names several grounds tied to disability, among them anyone "who is blind or disabled (as defined in section 1614)", anyone "with a disabling mental disorder", and anyone "with a physical, intellectual or developmental disability that significantly impairs their ability to perform 1 or more activities of daily living." A disabled adult in the group whose condition fits none of those grounds, and who has no other exemption, will have to log the hours or lose Medicaid, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expects that "enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027."
- Minnesotans With Disabilities Who Rely on Home Care Are Exposed to Medicaid Cuts Tracing to the 2025 Budget Plan Finstad Voted For. Each version of H.Con.Res. 14 survived by two votes with Finstad voting yes, 217 to 215 on February 25, 2025 and 216 to 214 on April 10, 2025, so a no from him alone would have left either one tied, and a tie fails. It ordered the committee that writes Medicaid law to "reduce the deficit by not less than $880,000,000,000" over a decade. Home and community-based services, the aides and supports that let disabled people live in their own homes instead of institutions, are "largely an optional Medicaid benefit," and the Bipartisan Policy Center notes that many policy experts expect the law to "slow or reverse recent HCBS expansion efforts" across the states.
What Brad Finstad's Votes Mean for Minnesotans With Disabilities
- 12,100 Medicaid enrollees with disabilities in southern Minnesota stand to lose services as the program shrinks. Disability is how 12,100 of the 140,000 Medicaid enrollees in Minnesota's 1st District qualified for the program in 2025, KFF's figures show, and the $19.1 billion the law takes from Minnesota's federal Medicaid funding over ten years is money that pays for the care and supports many of them use every day.
- Disabled Minnesotans whose exemptions go unverified risk joining the 140,000 the state expects to lose coverage. Statewide, Minnesota health officials expect 140,000 people to come off coverage under the law, MPR News reported in April 2026, and a disabled adult in the expansion group whose exemption the state never confirms is at risk of being counted among them.
Frequently Asked Questions About Brad Finstad on Disability rights
What is Brad Finstad's record on disability rights under Trump?
Brad Finstad cast the vote that let the One Big Beautiful Bill Act pass the House 215 to 214 and then voted for the final law, under which disabled adults in Minnesota's Medicaid expansion group will have to report work hours starting January 1, 2027 unless they fall under an exemption. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects the requirement will cut enrollment by 2.3 million people in fiscal 2027. Finstad also cast deciding votes on both 2025 budget resolutions, whose $880 billion target for the Energy and Commerce Committee came before Medicaid cuts that put optional home care at risk.
Who in southern Minnesota's 1st District faces Medicaid work reporting because of Brad Finstad's vote?
Brad Finstad voted for a law under which the 22,800 Medicaid expansion adults in Minnesota's 1st District, by KFF's 2025 count, will have to report work hours unless they qualify for an exemption, such as a qualifying disability. States have to put the rule in place "no later than January 1, 2027."
Could home care for people with disabilities in Minnesota be cut because of Brad Finstad's votes?
Home care in Minnesota is exposed: Brad Finstad's deciding budget votes set the $880 billion Energy and Commerce savings target that the law's Medicaid cuts followed, and "Medicaid pays for almost 70% of all home care spending in the U.S., nearly all of which is provided through optional services," KFF reports. Optional services are the ones states can trim when federal money shrinks, as it does by $19.1 billion over ten years in Minnesota under the law.
Last updated: 2026-10-27