Another in an ongoing series:
Dear Senator McCormick;
I've been meaning to ask you about rural hospitals and Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.
Pennlive reported:
Things are about to get bleaker for rural hospitals.
The newly enacted federal tax and spending law calls for some of the deepest cuts to health care spending in U.S. history, with more than $1 trillion sliced from Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income Americans.
Health policy experts have sounded the alarm that the massive loss of funding to individuals and reimbursements to health care systems will decimate already struggling rural hospitals and nursing facilities.
While the Senate tacked on a $50 billion fund to help alleviate the cuts, KFF reported on some of the limitations of that fund:
- It's only a little more than one third of the bills loss of Medicare funding in rural areas
- The fund is temporary while many of the cuts in Trump's bill aren't
And so on.
So my first question to you is, how many rural Pennsylvania hospitals are estimated to close due to the bill you signed? And given that, what will be the impact on Pennsylvania's rural communities given that closing hospitals won't change the numbers of people who need them? Presumably people will have to travel farther for health care, more people will be heading to the hospitals that are lucky enough to remain open, increasing the burden (and costs) of those hospitals.
Any comment on any of those questions, Senator?
I'll await your answer.
As always, whatever answer I get, I'll post here.
