Proposed cuts to Medicaid in Congress’ budget reconciliation bill would have “detrimental” effects to communities in West Virginia, the head of a state rural health organization told reporters Monday.
Seven rural hospitals in West Virginia would be at risk of closure if the cuts to health care in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” become law, Rich Sutphin, executive director of the West Virginia Rural Health Care Association, said Monday.
That number includes one independent, rural hospital in West Virginia, according to a report released Monday by Families USA, a national nonpartisan organization that advocates for health care consumers.
Sutphin said the cuts would affect a rural, independent hospital in central West Virginia that is the sole provider of primary and emergency care for six or seven counties. The hospital, which he did not name, also operates an emergency medical service and a skilled nursing facility, he said.
“If this hospital were to close, those communities in those seven counties comprising thousands of West Virginians would lose access to all of those services,” Sutphin said. “So not only are they losing access to primary care, losing their Medicaid coverage, and probably delaying treatment for things like diabetes and heart disease, which are precursors for heart attacks and strokes, they’re going to lose access to emergency medical services to get them to tertiary care centers.
“So these types of cuts are really going to be detrimental to communities within West Virginia with real impacts, and almost immediately,” Sutphin said.
Sutphin’s comments came during a press call Monday hosted by Families USA.
Nationally, about 400 rural, independent hospitals in 26 states are at risk of closing if the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” is signed into law, the report says.
“Many rural independent hospitals are already facing tough times, many with negative net revenue, and this bill would push many more into the red,” Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement Monday. “These proposed Medicaid cuts and coverage terminations could be the final blow for many independent rural hospitals across America. Medicaid is often the biggest line item in these rural hospitals’ budgets, and reducing those paying patients and increasing uncompensated care, on top of direct cuts, would be devastating.”
The U.S. House of Representatives last month narrowly passed a version of the bill that would cut Medicaid by more than $700 billion — the largest in the program’s history. The bill would impose work reporting requirements and cause roughly 15 million people to lose their health care coverage over the next few years, analysts say.
The Senate version of the bill would cut Medicaid even more and expand the proposed work requirements for the program.
A report earlier this month from the Sheps Center for Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that more than 300 rural hospitals, including seven in West Virginia, are at risk of closure because of cuts in the bill.
Rhonda Rogombé, health policy analyst for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said the additional paperwork requirements the bill contemplates would cause people to lose their health coverage, despite otherwise qualifying for the program.
“This will impact entire communities… hospitals in West Virginia that rely on Medicaid are at risk of closure, and when a hospital closes, that impacts everybody, not just enrollees and Medicaid,” she said.
West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, both Republicans, have said they support work requirements for the health care program.
“Biblically, you’re supposed to work,” Justice reportedly said in an interview with The Independent. “We have taken the dignity and the hope and the belief away from a lot of people where they are hopeless, they think they can’t. “
In a recent interview with CNBC, Capito said those who need SNAP or Medicaid benefits should get them, but said there are people on the programs who don’t qualify.
“But what’s happened here is there are people on those benefits, both benefits programs that don’t deserve to be on there or don’t qualify and have stayed on for years and years for one reason or another,” Capito said. “We need to flush that out. Get rid of the waste, the fraud, the abuse of the system so that it is there for the basic folks who need it.”
Rogombe said the changes to the Affordable Care Act provisions in the bill will have a significant impact in West Virginia. The Senate bill would raise costs for people enrolled in plans through the state’s health insurance marketplace by failing to extend tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.
“We will see the uninsured rate, which has been historically low for since the adoption of these flexibilities within the ACA plan, we will see historically high uninsured rates again, and that will have devastating impacts on quality of life in our state,” she said.
This article originally appeared on West Virginia Watch.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
