Michael Shepherd (@mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social)

Earlier this year, as Republicans stuffed President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill with handouts to the rich and cuts to programs for the needy, one of the main sticking points among several key GOP senators was the proposed reductions to Medicaid. Their worry was not for the estimated 12 million people who would lose access to the program, but for the already struggling rural hospitals that might go under as a result of the cuts. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote in The New York Times that “many of our rural hospitals and health providers depend on the funding from these programs to keep their doors open.… If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple.” https://newrepublic.com/maz/article/203052/rural-health-transformation-hospital-fund-republican-joke