By John Asbury (source)

Long Island addiction-treatment providers said Monday that a congressional spending bill's $880 billion in proposed cuts, largely to Medicaid, and more than $1 billion in proposed trims to the federal budget, could lead to closed substance abuse programs and reduced services.

Organizers from several Long Island organizations gathered Monday with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to call on Congress to reject the Medicaid cuts in the proposed spending bill, which has already passed in the Republican-controlled House and awaits consideration by the GOP-majority Senate.

"It would devastate us," said Ann-Marie Foster, president of the Phoenix House, which operates 300 beds at residential treatment centers at four Long Island locations, with about 95% of those served on Medicaid.

"We would significantly have to reduce service and potentially close programs," Foster said.

Congress is still negotiating with President Donald Trump on his budget bill, which is expected to come up for a vote in September and calls for cutting $1 billion from SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which could freeze grants for addiction centers and Narcan overdose treatment, Schumer said. 

"Devastating Medicaid cuts proposed by the Republican leadership in the House are taking direct aim on Long Island and at the worst possible moment," Schumer said. "Now the cuts would slash funding that goes directly to addiction treatment, mental health services and recovery support."

The $880 billion in cuts in the spending bill are to fund about $4.5 trillion in billionaire tax cuts, Schumer and other Democrats said Monday.

Addiction treatment advocates on Long Island said the proposed cuts would decimate the region's substance abuse programs that rely on Medicaid funding and potentially force others to close.

The Garden City-based Family & Children’s Association has halted plans for a $6 million treatment facility in Westbury while organizers weigh the uncertainties in Medicaid funding and budget funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and SAMHSA, officials said.

Up to 80% of the association's recipients served by substance and mental health counselors would be on Medicaid, according to the association. The treatment center was placed on hold until funding is secured, officials said.

Since the association started its THRIVE recovery program in 2017 in Nassau and Suffolk counties, there has been a downturn in overdose deaths, said the association's president Jeffrey L. Reynolds.

"We recently talked about turning the corner on the crisis, that we hadn't turned the corner in 25-plus years, and finally, we saw a reduction in fatalities," Reynolds said. "For individuals to wake up on a Monday morning and say, ‘Today's the day I'm going to get the help I need, and I'm going to turn this thing around,’ they won't have that unless Congress does the right thing. The impact of Medicaid cuts is severe."

Schumer said the potential cuts could affect 600,000 Long Islanders enrolled in the federal health care program.

The Hicksville-based Central Nassau Guidance and Counseling Services is facing $7 million in cuts, which could affect 11,000 Long Islanders and 55 jobs, Schumer said. 

Nassau and Suffolk counties both showed a decline in overdose deaths in recent years, while falling 32% statewide in 2024, Newsday previously reported.

Suffolk saw an estimated 311 opioid fatalities last year, which marked a more than 26% drop from 2023, according to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office. The CDC estimated 179 overdose deaths through September last year in Nassau County, marking a potential 22% decline.

The proposed cuts in Trump's budget also would end a $56 million national grant to distribute Narcan, which is used to treat overdoses of fentanyl and other opioids, addiction experts said.

"This is a reckoning for America right now. We have to ask ourselves: Is health care a right, or is it a privilege? When people are sick, do they have the right to get well?" said Steve Chassman, executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (LICADD). "There are 26 million Americans right now living in long-term recovery from substance use disorders. There are too many Long Islanders, New Yorkers and Americans who have incurred great loss. These proposed cuts will sling us back to where we were 5, 10,15 years ago."

U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) said in a statement Monday that the spending bill before the Senate "protects Medicaid services for vulnerable populations — it doesn’t cut them. As for the President’s budget proposal, it’s just that — a proposal. ... Sen. Schumer is deliberately spreading falsehoods to scare people into thinking they’re losing their health care. It’s dishonest, it’s dangerous, and it’s exactly what’s broken in Washington."