Hundreds of rural hospitals in states that Trump in won in 2024 will close because of his $1 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Obamacare insurance premiums will more than double because Republicans won’t extend the Obamacare subsidies that would keep them low. The higher premiums will not be affordable for many Americans, and neither will the cost of hospitalization.
A total of 759 rural U.S. hospitals are at risk of closure due to financial stress. 728 of them are in states that voted Republican in 2024. 188 rural hospitals have either closed or abandoned inpatient care.
Rural hospitals in states that will experience the largest reductions in Medicaid coverage are the most likely to fail.
So are rural hospitals that serve a large number of older adults due to aging populations and higher per-capita reliance on Medicaid.
In states that don’t expand Medicaid its 53%. Hospital closures are more than twice as likely to occur in the Republican-controlled states that do not expand Medicaid.
Although the Senate appropriated $50 billion in a “rural health fund” to help struggling hospitals, Trump appointee Dr. Oz who oversees Medicare and Medicaid” has wide discretion over how to allocate the $50 billion. It’s near certain his allocations will conform to Trump’s history of punishing Democratic states and favoring Republican states and will have little correlation with need.
Even if distributions were on the up and up, estimates are that the fund won’t be enough as the amount of aid to hospitals over five years is less than the $137 billion in lost healthcare revenues to rural healthcare systemsover ten years.
It may be hard to believe that an American President would let hospitals close and let people suffer and die. But we need to remember that Donald Trump cancelled most of U.S. humanitarian aid abroad that prevented disease outbreaks while HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis were now spreading unchecked in many countries reliant on USAID medications.
I’ll leave MAGAs with one thought. I like to be wrong. If I’m never wrong, I’ll never learn anything.
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