STUNNING announcement blows up Trump’s budget bill

STUNNING announcement blows up Trump’s budget bill

In a devastating yet predictable update that puts on full display the dangerous impacts of the Republicans’s new budget bill, a medical clinic that has been serving the people of Curtis, Nebraska for three decades just announced that it would be shutting down. Put clearly, this is a town of 900 people in rural America, losing their access to health care because Republicans decided that tax cuts for billionaires are more important than keeping rural Americans alive. Here’s what Community Hospital CEO Troy Brunt said in announcing this closure. Unfortunately, the current financial environment driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years. Notice that word anticipated. This clinic is closing because of cuts that haven’t even happened yet. That’s how obvious the devastation from the one big beautiful bill is going to be. The implications of this bill are so clear-cut, so evident that healthc care providers are literally shutting down because it’s just that clear what is coming. So when Republicans try and claim that health care won’t be touched, when hospitals are already shuttering, it makes that lie a lot more difficult to prop up. Granted, that won’t mean the lies will stop. Here’s just a small sampling of what it sounds like.
No, we’re not going to be playing with Medicaid. Only waste fraud. Yeah. The Democrats have it wrong. Yeah. Waste, fraud, and abuse.
We’re not cutting Medicaid. There’s no cuts to Medicaid. There’s simply restrictions in the growth of Medicaid over the next decade.
This bill strengthens Medicaid. It will protect those benefits that um hardworking Americans need. And that’s why the president wants this bill to pass.
Let me be crystal clear about what absolute that is. We’ve seen numerous estimates which show that as many as 17 million people would become uninsured by 2034 as the direct result of this bill. The American Hospital Association says that these are the largest Medicaid cuts ever proposed by Congress, totaling over $1 trillion. Rural hospitals would lose 21 cents out of every dollar they receive in Medicaid funding, leading to the closure of more than 300 rural hospitals in addition to the one that’s already closing in Nebraska. So when Republicans tell you that they’re not cutting Medicaid, they are lying to your face. When they tell you that rural hospitals will be fine, they are lying to your face. When they say that this bill protects health care, they are lying to your face. In fact, here’s another rural hospital CEO, this one from that big blue bastion of Louisiana explaining the implications of these cuts. So, what do these Medicaid cuts that we’re learning more about in that was that’s working its way through Washington. What do these Medicaid cuts mean for Hood Memorial? So, ultimately, you know, I want want to back up a little bit. Prior to 2016, um we did not have Medicaid expansion in Louisiana. Governor Edwards, that was his first official act uh when he uh signed into uh executive order Medicaid expansion. That saved that act alone saved a lot of rural hospitals. And since that time, since Medicaid expansion has been uh brought forward in Louisiana, we’ve not had any rural hospitals close. So that what this has done is allowed us to uh invest in additional services for our communities, invest in addition new equipment, replace aging equipment. Um you know most of rural hospitals are operating in buildings that were built in the 60 50s through the 70s. So uh there’s a lot of capital improvements that need to be made. Well, when you when if if if these cuts go into effect, we’re still legally required to provide care to our citizens, but ultimately we will be providing that care with no with no little to no reimbursement. And that will set us back 10 years um and then eventually put us on a course to where it’s very very difficult, if not impossible, for us to offer new services or reinvest in our facility. and uh provide additional services to our patients. It’s just going to make it impossible to do.
And what’s even worse is that researchers from the University of North Carolina found that of the more than 300 rural hospitals that are at risk of closure because of these cuts, many of them are in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Again, not exactly big blue bastions. We are talking about entire communities largely in red areas losing access to emergency care, maternal services, mental health treatment. Now, Republicans will tell you that they’ve included $50 billion for rural hospitals in their bill to cushion the blow. But let’s do some basic math here. They are cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid and throwing rural hospitals $50 billion as a consolation prize. That’s like setting somebody’s house on fire, but then also offering them a garden hose. Multiple Republican senators, including Josh Holly, Tom Tillis, and Susan Collins, have all said that $50 billion is not nearly enough. Even Republicans think their own plan is inadequate. Of course, that’s clearly not enough to prevent them from actually voting for the thing, which they gladly did, meaning they know full well the consequences, and yet we’re totally fine with perpetuating them. But the most ridiculous part of all of this is the sheer dishonesty. The White House literally put out a fact sheet claiming that rural hospitals comprise just 7% of all hospital spending on Medicaid, as if that somehow means they won’t be devastated by these cuts. That’s like saying, “Don’t worry about that small percentage of hospitals going out of business. It’s only the ones that are keeping rural America alive.” And that’s a point that I discussed with Pods Safe America’s Tommy Vtor. You have uh people like Lisa Marowski who are trying to applaud the fact that she was able to make this bill less terrible by saying, “Okay, well, we we were able to raise the rural hospital fund from $25 billion to $50 billion, but but it’s to offset damage that the same bill imposes.” And so like if you’re if you’re if you’re voting in favor of legislation that would strip $1.1 billion from Medicaid, but then also saying like, “Hey, we’re able to get like a few percentage points of that funding back.” You don’t get credit for making the thing that you are voting for less bad when you had the opportunity to just not vote for it. I mean, the example I like to use is like is this is the equivalent of her basically saying, “I was able to secure fire extinguishers in this bill that would set the forest on fire.” She like, did you see the video of her? I think she got asked by like Ryan Nobles, maybe NBC News about criticism of the bill and criticism of her vote and she just stared daggers into
for 10 seconds
like just crazy and then and then was just like so defensive like she is the victim here, not the people in her state who are going to get thrown off their healthcare, going to lose food assistance.
It’s also a point I discussed with Jamie Rascin. even what she was able to extract was was crumbs compared to the to to the damage that she would that this bill would rot onto the people of Alaska. So, it’s it’s so bizarre to me to say, “Okay, well, at least I was able to offset some of the damage when you yourself also voted for the damage.” Like, there’s another option. It’s just to not to vote not vote for the bill, but yeah, to stop it. And and this is something that uh Hakeem Jeff has been pointing out with really, you know, powerful effect on the floor where he’s saying, you know, all of these Republicans from moderate districts were signing letters to the Senate, please change this and please take that and they’re trying to show we really support Medicaid and our constituents are in trouble. Take that out. And he’s saying, wait a second, this passed by one vote in the US House. Had you not voted for it, you would have been able to achieve your objective of saving people from these savage Medicaid cuts.
Here’s what this all comes down to. Republicans are so committed to delivering tax cuts to their wealthy donors and themselves that they are willing to literally let people die to pay for it, largely their own constituents. They know that rural hospitals will close. They know that people will lose coverage. They know that communities will be left without any emergency care. And yet they’re doing it anyway because at the end of the day, their priority is not keeping Americans healthy. It is keeping their billionaire friends happy. And they’ll lie about every single detail to make that happen. The clinic in Curtis, Nebraska isn’t the first casualty of Republicans priorities. And it sure as hell won’t be the last. But every time one of these facilities closes, every time somebody loses coverage, every time a rural community is left without a hospital, remember this moment. Remember that Republicans had a choice between protecting health care and protecting tax cuts for the wealthy. And remember exactly which one they chose.

Breaking #news – STUNNING announcement blows up Trump’s budget bill

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