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Trump Attack on Rural Hospitals Will Split His Base [1]
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Date: 2025-02-22
Trump’s attack on rural hospitals and Medicaid will alienate him from the rural communities that form much of his base.
The deranged orange creep announced he would not cut Medicaid and then supported a bill that would slash the program within hours.
Of course, like much of his manic efforts, he obviously has no idea what Medicaid is or does.
Importantly, Medicaid is a lifeline for rural communities, helping them to keep their hospitals open. In a small town, the hospital often is the largest employer and can make the difference between maintaining a vibrant community and starting on the road to becoming a ghost town.
When someone arrives at a hospital with serious illness or injury, the hospital has to treat them. This obligation stands whether the patient has insurance or not. A giant urban hospital can have many revenue streams, with expensive cancer treatments, hip replacements, complicated surgery, etc. In a rural hospital, spending even a few thousand on a patient without being able to recover brings it closer to closing its doors.
Medicaid has been a lifeline to rural hospitals, helping them to stay open. Arizona Republicans voted for Medicaid expansion to save its hospitals, particularly rural hospitals.
With Medicaid on the chopping block, Arizona could have no hospitals outside the Phoenix and Tucson areas. (This of course excludes the Indian Health Service hospitals on reservations, which face their own challenges with Trump’s cuts.)
Rep. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, is warning the Medicaid cuts will cause disaster for his district. Arizona Republic. Slashing Medicaid, ..., "would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open," Ciscomani and five other Hispanic GOP members of the House of Representatives wrote in a Feb. 19 letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
It’s pretty tough news for Johnson. He can only lose one Republican vote if he wants to pass Trump’s bill to bankrupt America while lining the pockets of billionaires.
The Republicans have an idea that they can solve their Medicaid problems with work requirements. It’s not clear how it would be helpful to tell a patient arriving with serious bleeding to get a job.
Arizona right-wingers are beginning to regret having voted for the face-eating leopards. The loss of their hospitals will bring the issue into sharp focus
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