A rural Nebraska clinic blames its closing on Trump’s Medicaid cuts. Patients don’t buy it. "Horse Feathers"

[essentialsaltes]

“Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar,” April Roberts said, as she oversaw lunch at the Curtis Area Senior Center.

The retirees trickling in for fried chicken and soft-serve ice cream will be hit hardest when the clinic closes this fall, Roberts fears. Seniors who sometimes go in multiple times a month to have blood drawn will have to drive 40 miles to the next nearest health center

Arriving for lunch, retired Navy veteran Jim Christensen said he’d read an op-ed that “tried to blame everything on Trump.”

“Horse feathers,” he said, dismissing the idea.
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“They’re huge [fans of Trump] … and so it doesn’t matter what he does - there’s an excuse for it,” [registered Republican but non-Trump voter] Jorgensen said. The retired corn and cattle farmer was used to being the odd one out in Frontier County, where 86 percent of the vote went to Trump last fall.

Many people in Curtis have directed their frustration at their hospital system instead of their representatives in Washington.

Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 - one day before the bill’s passage - that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,” the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans.

Rural health care facilities run on thin margins to serve small communities in far-flung locations. And they tend to have more patients on Medicaid, many of them self-employed farmers, small business owners and seasonal workers more likely to need public insurance. Hospital groups and executives have warned that some rural hospitals that long operated at a loss won’t be able to stay open much longer, now that the Medicaid cuts have been voted in.

Community Hospital officials said they had tried to find another group to take over the clinic, without luck.

 

[RileyG]

Scary. I know exactly where that town is.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The rural health 'Hunger Games' are underway​

The Trump administration on Monday kicked off a scramble among the 50 states for a slice of a new $50 billion fund for rural health care, but experts on the ground fear the program’s rushed timeline, lack of guardrails and potential for politicization will leave some hospitals struggling to stay open.

States have just a few weeks to submit detailed applications for the fund, which Congress created late in its negotiations over a bill this summer that made deep cuts to Medicaid and other health programs. Federal health officials will then have a couple months to review them and dispense the money.

After the application window closes in early November, half of the fund will be dispensed at the discretion of Oz, while the other half will be divided equally among states that apply — meaning Wyoming would get the same amount as California despite their massive population difference. How much states get will also depend on whether they implement policies pushed by the Trump administration

States will have no ability to appeal if their applications are rejected or they receive less money than they requested. Oz also said the federal government can “claw back” funding from states that “don’t perform” and redistribute it, saying: “This is not punitive. This is a very clever decision by the crafters of the law.”

Even if all the money goes to where it’s needed most, many experts are concerned that it will not make up for the massive hit rural providers are expected to take from the other provisions of the bill, including the reduction of hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Scary. I know exactly where that town is.

I know a few towns like that too.

 

[RileyG]

I know a few towns like that too.

Lifelong Nebraskan. See people I know from my past in my city all the time. It’s a very rural state

 

[Tuur]

“Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar,” April Roberts said, as she oversaw lunch at the Curtis Area Senior Center.

The retirees trickling in for fried chicken and soft-serve ice cream will be hit hardest when the clinic closes this fall, Roberts fears. Seniors who sometimes go in multiple times a month to have blood drawn will have to drive 40 miles to the next nearest health center

Arriving for lunch, retired Navy veteran Jim Christensen said he’d read an op-ed that “tried to blame everything on Trump.”

“Horse feathers,” he said, dismissing the idea.
--
“They’re huge [fans of Trump] … and so it doesn’t matter what he does - there’s an excuse for it,” [registered Republican but non-Trump voter] Jorgensen said. The retired corn and cattle farmer was used to being the odd one out in Frontier County, where 86 percent of the vote went to Trump last fall.

Many people in Curtis have directed their frustration at their hospital system instead of their representatives in Washington.

Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 - one day before the bill’s passage - that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,” the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans.

Rural health care facilities run on thin margins to serve small communities in far-flung locations. And they tend to have more patients on Medicaid, many of them self-employed farmers, small business owners and seasonal workers more likely to need public insurance. Hospital groups and executives have warned that some rural hospitals that long operated at a loss won’t be able to stay open much longer, now that the Medicaid cuts have been voted in.

Community Hospital officials said they had tried to find another group to take over the clinic, without luck.

As luck would have it, just yesterday was thinking about two closed hospitals. One closed in the late 20th Century. The other closed during the Obama administration. Somehow, I don't think Trump was involved with either one.

Have harped on this before, but there is a clause in Obamacare that prevents physicians from referring patients to a hospital where they have a financial stake of X (meaning I've forgotten the percentage) percent. Obviously the intent of the clause was to prevent abuse by physicians padding their income, but it also shut the door on the main way rural areas got and kept hospitals.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

Trump cares about the rich and himself. And Nobody else. Trump has ben very honest But people voted to lose access to medical help and so much more. And right news wasn't telling their people the truth.