On February 25 and again on April 10, 2025, Jeff Van Drew's vote was the margin for a budget plan ordering $880 billion in savings from the committee that oversees Medicaid; on May 22 his yes pushed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act past the House by one vote; and on July 3 he voted for the final law, whose work requirement reaches Medicaid's expansion group, the coverage KFF calls "the primary coverage pathway for people with mental health or substance use disorders."
New Jersey shows how much rides on that group: in 2021, 38,235 of the state's 52,243 Medicaid adults diagnosed with opioid use disorder, 73%, were covered through the expansion, and so were 24,896 of the 33,641 who received medication to treat it.
Jeff Van Drew's Votes on Medicaid Coverage for Mental Health and Addiction Care
- Van Drew Voted Twice for a Medicaid Work Rule That Reaches People in Recovery, in 2025. Jeff Van Drew's yes on May 22, 2025 was one of the 215 that beat 214 for the House bill, and he voted for the final law on July 3, 2025, 218 to 214. The final law exempts people with a substance use disorder, people "with a disabling mental disorder," and people taking part in a treatment and rehabilitation program for drug or alcohol addiction, among other groups. Someone with a mental illness who fits none of the exemptions has to document monthly hours, and the Commonwealth Fund expects many who lose coverage to be people who "will remain eligible for Medicaid but who did not successfully complete the paperwork."
- Van Drew Gave Both 2025 Budget Votes Their Margin, Setting an $880 Billion Target for Medicaid's Committee That Strains Treatment. The House budget resolution, H.Con.Res. 14, won 217 to 215 on February 25, 2025 with Van Drew's vote, and the Senate's rewrite won 216 to 214 on April 10, 2025; either would have tied, and failed, if he had switched. Its instruction to the Medicaid committee was to "reduce the deficit by not less than $880,000,000,000." Medicaid is how states built out much of their mental health and addiction care, and it pays for "over half (56%) of those receiving medication" for opioid use disorder, and KFF warned that the law's cuts and "a more tenuous fiscal climate for states may make those gains harder to sustain."
What Jeff Van Drew's Votes Mean for New Jersey Residents in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment
- Van Drew's vote puts 56,100 expansion enrollees in his district under the work rule. In New Jersey's 2nd District, 56,100 people had Medicaid through the expansion in 2025, KFF's district map shows. Statewide, 74% of the New Jersey Medicaid adults given medication for opioid use disorder in 2021 were in the expansion group, and from January 1, 2027 at the latest they keep that coverage only by fitting an exemption, such as the one for a substance use disorder, or by reporting hours, and a lapse would cut off the counseling, medication and therapy Medicaid pays for.
- 24,896 New Jersey adults on opioid treatment medication had it through the expansion the work rule targets. Of the 33,641 New Jersey Medicaid adults who received medication for opioid use disorder in 2021, 24,896, or 74%, were covered through the expansion. For each of them, a lapse in coverage puts the medication that keeps opioid addiction in check at risk.
- New Jersey's $28.71 billion Medicaid cut leaves less for the treatment the state expanded. KFF's allocation takes $28.71 billion in federal Medicaid funding from New Jersey over ten years, 18% of expected federal money, and that money also pays for the counseling, inpatient stays and medication Medicaid covers for New Jersey residents with mental illness or addiction.
Frequently Asked Questions About Jeff Van Drew on Mental health and addiction
What is Jeff Van Drew's record on mental health and addiction under Trump?
Jeff Van Drew's votes decided both 2025 budget resolutions and the House's May passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and he voted for the final law on July 3, 2025. Under that law New Jersey forgoes $28.71 billion in federal Medicaid money over a decade, and it applies a work requirement to the expansion group, which covered 73% of New Jersey Medicaid adults with opioid use disorder in 2021.
When do New Jersey residents in addiction treatment face the work rule Jeff Van Drew voted for?
Starting no later than January 1, 2027, under the law Jeff Van Drew voted for: New Jersey has until that date to begin applying the work requirement, and expansion enrollees are rechecked every six months from renewals on or after December 31, 2026. A person in treatment who fits none of the exemptions, which cover a substance use disorder, a disabling mental illness and taking part in a drug or alcohol treatment program, must report qualifying hours to stay covered.
What happens to Medicaid for New Jersey residents leaving jail under the law Jeff Van Drew voted for?
Under the law Jeff Van Drew voted for, people released from jail or prison are spared the work requirement only for about three months; the exemption applies when the person was an inmate "at any point during the 3-month period" before the month in question. MindSite News, citing a 2018 study, reported that over their first year out, former prisoners faced 11 times the overdose death risk of other people.
Last updated: 2026-10-27