Category: Medicaid
Commentary: The Cost of Care in the Land of Plenty
We don’t talk about it much, but the numbers tell the story plain: about four in 10 adults in America carry medical or dental debt, and rural folks are more likely to struggle with it than people living in urban areas.
Rural Health Transformation Program Won’t Make Up for Federal Budget Cuts, Experts Agree
A new program touted to give $50 billion in federal funding to rural hospitals won’t necessarily keep rural hospitals from closing, according to several experts in rural health.
‘You’re Going to See Very Severe Things and Dangerous Things’: Medicaid Cuts in Rural Idaho
Maternity care deserts are counties with no hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and no obstetric clinicians. According to data collected by March of Dimes, 32% of Idaho’s counties are maternity care deserts.
Trump’s new law will limit payments to hospitals that treat low-income patients
President 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 cuts are likely to worsen mental health care in rural America
Medicaid cuts in the massive tax and spending bill signed into law earlier this month will worsen mental health disparities in those communities, experts say, as patients lose coverage and rural health centers are unable to remain open amid a loss of funds.
How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034
As a public health professor, I see these changes, which will be phased in over several years, as the first step in a reversal of the expansion of access to health care that began with the ACA’s passage in 2010. About 25.3 million Americans lacked insurance in 2023, down sharply from 46.5 million when President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law. All told, the changes in the works could eliminate three-quarters of the progress the U.S. has made in reducing the number of uninsured Americans following the Affordable Care Act.
Congress Is Pushing for a Medicaid Work Requirement. Here’s What Happened When Georgia Tried It.
Congressional Republicans, looking for ways to offset their proposed tax cuts, are seeking to mandate that millions of Americans work in order to receive federally subsidized health insurance.
‘MAGA’ Backers Like Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ — Until They Learn of Health Consequences
Nearly two-thirds of adults oppose President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” approved in May by the House of Representatives, according to a new poll.
And even Trump’s most ardent supporters like the legislation a lot less when they learn how it would cut federal spending on health programs, the poll shows.
When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health
The connection to your primary care provider, usually a doctor, gets severed. You stop getting routine checkups. Warning signs get missed. Medical problems that could have been caught early become emergencies. And because emergencies are both dangerous and expensive, your health gets worse while your medical bills climb.
‘Expensive and complicated’: Most rural hospitals no longer deliver babies
Nationwide, most rural hospitals no longer offer obstetric services. Since the end of 2020, more than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies. Fewer than 1,000 rural hospitals nationwide still have labor and delivery services.
‘Big Beautiful Bill’ dings states that offer health care to some immigrants here legally
The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally.
Why do cuts to Medicaid matter for Americans over 65? Two experts on aging explain why lives are at stakeWhy do cuts to Medicaid matter for Americans over 65?
People who lost their Medicaid coverage had more chronic conditions and could perform fewer activities of daily living, such as bathing and getting dressed, without any assistance as compared with those who still had Medicaid coverage. In addition, they were twice as likely to experience depression and be in fair or poor health. As people’s health worsened, they also went to the hospital more often and stayed there longer. They also used outpatient surgery services more frequently.
Children’s health services could see trims even under scaled-back Medicaid cuts
Even as Republicans in Congress walk back their most aggressive proposal to slash federal Medicaid spending, they are weighing other options that could force states to cut services for children and other vulnerable populations.
Biden wanted Medicaid to pay for weight-loss drugs. Trump just said it doesn’t have to.
While doctors and patient advocates say these drugs are critical to helping patients struggling with obesity and can save money in the long run by reducing comorbidities such as heart disease, others say the medications are just too expensive for most states to afford.
Commentary: Rural Americans Need the Trump Administration to Provide an Additional Path to Fight Obesity
The prevalence of obesity among rural Americans is six times higher.