Some 700 rural hospitals, which serve a largely older, sicker, and poorer population than most U.S. hospitals, are at risk of closing. Now, with the cuts to Medicaid being considered in Washington as part of the healthcare debate, their prospects could be even darker, says a story produced by NPR, KBIA, and Kaiser Health News. The House bill that would repeal Obamacare and replace it with the GOP-drawn plan “cuts Medicaid by $834 billion over 10 years, and the Senate revision of that bill cuts the program even more on a different timetable.”
Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems, which runs the public hospital in one of the poorest counties in Missouri, offers an example of how decisions at the state and federal levels have affected the well-being of small, local hospitals. In 2005, Missouri lawmakers made sweeping cuts to Medicaid. About 40 percent of Pemiscot’s patients were enrolled in Medicaid, and nearly half of them lost coverage. Since it is a public hospital, Pemiscot is obligated to provide care “but we’re no longer being compensated,” says Kerry Noble, the company’s chief executive.
The state decided against an expansion in Medicaid that was offered as part of Obamacare. “For now, the doors of Pemiscot Memorial are still open. The hospital has cut some costly programs—like obstetrics—outsourced its ambulance service and has skipped upgrades,” says the public broadcasting story. Still, Pemiscot’s Noble wonders, “How long are we going to be here if we don’t get some relief?”