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stateline.org

Critics warn the change to Medicaid will be particularly harmful to rural hospitals struggling to stay afloat.

Donald Trump’s new tax and spending law will likely force more than half the states to reduce payments to doctors and hospitals that treat Medicaid patients, a change critics warn will be particularly harmful to rural hospitals struggling to stay afloat.

Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for low-income people, reimburses doctors, hospitals and nursing facilities for treating enrollees. But in many cases, the program doesn’t fully cover the cost of care, straining providers that serve a large share of Medicaid patients.

To help providers cover losses and continue to serve poorer populations, the federal government allows the 41 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have contracted with Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) to run their Medicaid programs to direct them to pay providers more — in some cases, as much as commercial plans.

  • Zagam@piefed.socialEnglish
    371·
    2 days ago

    It’s stuff like this that should remind us that it’s not just a race thing. It’s a class thing too.

  • Azal@pawb.socialEnglish
    10·
    1 day ago

    Bunch of hospitals in my state getting close to shutting down, all in districts that voted heavily Trump. I feel bad for the anti-Trumpers out there… but most of the communities that are crying as they’re also worried about this and losing their farms voted for him and this shitstick of a state government and my sympathy level is at the point of a Nelson laugh.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
    36·
    2 days ago

    Well no big deal, that just forces doctors to not hand out a bunch of fancy vanity treatments that patients don’t really need. Is it ever really necessary to just give poor people healthcare before a treatable issue turns into a chronic condition or becomes an emergency?

    When I was 17, I had to rush my mom to the E.R. at a hospital almost an hour away bc we thought she was having a heart attack. Luckily, it turned out it was just her gangrenous gallbladder that she’d needed to have taken out for nearly a decade, but kept putting off bc she was afraid of missing work. That sure was a stressful drive for a teenager 😅 and one expensive ER visit and hospital stay bill (which I had to try to unsuccessfully negotiate), and she had private insurance.

    In cases of legitimate necessary treatment, the human body has a way of shutting itself down to let you know.

    I’m glad we’ve made America great again 🇺🇸🙏🦅

  • lectricleopard@lemmy.world
    42·
    2 days ago

    I imagine a disgruntled patient watching Fox News in the waiting room of the ER in the only hospital in the county, thats closing in a week, “When Trump gets around to fixing health care, it’s going to be great again.”

  • Zephorah@discuss.online
    30·
    2 days ago

    Not a great headline, some may interpret it as limiting payments by low income people.

    We knew this was going to happen, we said it loudly since the idea was presented. Hospital income is 30-60% Medicare and Medicaid payments, rural and critical access hospitals representing the majority of those on the 60% side of things.

    This is why the last couple of months had seen a quiet wave of layoffs across hospitals. Anticipation.

    There’s no charity aspect here, even with the so called “nonprofit” versions. They can and willcut staff to skeleton crews (in unregulated states), and even shut down, once corporate fails to achieve requisite profits. Most clinics/PCPs are owned by venture capitalists now, so those clinics can shut down too.

    Expect access to medical care to decline each and every time MAGA touches Medicaid or Medicare.

  • xxce2AAb@feddit.dk
    37·
    2 days ago

    How tiresomely predictable. The owners want the herd culled before the serfs become uppity.