As Shutdown Thaws, Wyoming Juggles SNAP Relief and Health-Care Price Fears

With input from Wyoming News Now and KTGA – Bigfoot99.

With the nation’s longest federal shutdown finally lurching toward an end, Wyoming is celebrating one lifeline while bracing for another hit. SNAP benefits, frozen when Washington stopped the money spigot at the start of the month, should soon be back — welcome news in a state that scrambled to keep food on shelves. But Democrats warn the deal that reopens government could mean higher health-insurance premiums for everyday Wyomingites.

Governor Mark Gordon moved first, declaring a public welfare emergency and pledging up to $10 million to keep people fed. By Monday, the Department of Family Services had pushed out more than a million dollars in emergency food support, including funds to independent pantries and the Food Bank of Wyoming, with a promise to keep spending weekly until federal aid resumes.

“Until funds for SNAP beneficiaries are freed up in Washington, D.C., Wyoming will continue to help those in need. No one in Wyoming wants their neighbors to go hungry,” Gordon said.

On Capitol Hill, Wyoming’s delegation cheered the reopening while trading blame for the pain. Senator John Barrasso called the shutdown damaging but lauded the final result and thanked President Donald Trump for resisting demands to continue enhanced health-insurance subsidies — an omission Democrats say could hit family budgets hard. Laramie County Democratic chair Ted Hanlon said some residents could see premiums jump by hundreds or even thousands a month, stressing that the choice forced on Democrats — food assistance or health-care affordability — was no choice at all. Representative Mike Yin voiced the same worry, glad to see SNAP restored but asking what Congress plans to do about costs that keep climbing.

Barrasso countered that the new spending bill tackles what he called Obamacare’s “many failures,” arguing Republicans want high-quality, affordable care that the law has never delivered. Senator Cynthia Lummis blamed Democrats for prolonging the standoff for political gain. Representative Harriet Hageman, who voted to pass the bill in the House, said she’s relieved the government is finally reopening and urged Congress to get back to work for the public.

Back home, state officials are keeping the emergency food effort rolling while Washington flips the switch on federal programs. The Wyoming Hunger Relief Program isn’t replacing SNAP, but the state’s stopgap — channeled through DFS — has helped cushion the blow. Yin, for one, says the victory lap can wait. The fight, he argues, isn’t about which party “wins” a shutdown but whether anyone’s actually solving the basic problem: keeping families fed without pricing them out of health care.