Republicans Threaten a Hospital Apocalypse -- The American Prospect

[erronis]

https://prospect.org/health/2025-06-13-hospitals-senate-republicans-senate/
David Dayen

Experts warn of potentially hundreds of hospital closures, which would degrade the entire medical system.

A good and very sobering look at what is likely to happen in the US.

As we at the Prospect have reported, while the Senate’s version of the Republican budget reconciliation bill was widely expected to be more moderate than the House one, when it comes to health care it is more extreme. This came as a surprise to many Republicans, some of whom now want changes. And they all are highlighting the same area of concern. It would be “potentially really bad for rural hospitals,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told The Wall Street Journal. It’s “going to hurt our rural hospitals and hurt them in a big way,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) expressed “concerns about the effect on rural hospitals in her state.”

This is all certainly true. Senate cuts to the provider tax, a way for states to get more federal funding for their Medicaid programs, along with the House cuts that have been analyzed as leading to at least 11 million fewer people on the Medicaid rolls, will deeply harm the 700-plus rural hospitals already at risk of closure.

But that’s too narrow a frame. The entire health care provider network would come under heavy strain, and possibly collapse.

That’s because each node of the system is interdependent. If the 190 rural hospitals estimated in a recent Center for American Progress report as collateral damage of the Republican cuts close, all of their patients must find treatment at the remaining health care providers. Many of these new-arrival patients are likely to be uninsured (many thrown off Medicaid or Obamacare by Republicans), crushing hospital finances and potentially adding more closures on top.

. . .

[JustAnotherGen]

1. This is beyond stupid

None of this has to happen. America is simply going to have to go bankrupt by keeping things as they are - and not taxing millionaires.

And taxes can't be increased for anyone else either.

Let's just become a failed state and we will figure it out later.

[ananda]

7. But only after enough people have died or been deported...

to make them wake up to what excessive population decline
really means.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. Jesus

We live in an awful shit hole country.

The 'remigration' language is actually code for genocide.

[Wingus Dingus]

2. That's what the yokels voted for--let them eat

the fucked-up cake they baked for themselves.

[markodochartaigh]

3. Well,

hospital administration is usually about 20% of the hospital budget. Maybe cut 95% of administration, although I'm not for clawbacks on previous earnings unless it can be shown that the money was outright stolen.

[erronis]

4. While the top administrators may be overpaid, the staff that does the day-to-day administration

is not. And these staff are necessary for proper operation. Are you suggesting that doctors should be working with suppliers, billing, insurance companies, building infrastructure, etc.?

[markodochartaigh]

6. All

I know is what I saw working in a major hospital corporation for thirty years which siphoned off one third of everything penny that it took in while requiring registered nurses to work unpaid overtime and paying only straight time for whole shifts worked in excess of 80 hours in two weeks. And doctors and mid-levels do work with billing/insurance, spending time that they could be using in patient care dealing with insurance.

[Scrivener7]

5. Especially rural hospitals. From the Face Eating Leopard Network.

[patphil]

9. Those Republican Senators will still vote for the bill, watch and see.

It's all the other provisions in the bill that will result in them doing this.
This bill will take power from Congress and transfer it to the president.
It will take power from the Courts and transfer it to the president.
It will take power from the states and transfer it to the president.
It will take power from the people and transfer it to the president.
It will take wealth from the middle and lower classes and transfer it to the super rich.

The loss of healthcare and financial safety nets is merely a side issue to the real intent of this "big beautiful bill".
And somehow the Republicans in Congress are OK with all that.

[Clouds Passing]

10. Bargain basement foreclosure sales. They did it with the housing industry. Now they're doing it with the health industry