Rural Hospitals In Crisis Thanks to Trump’s Broken Health Care Promises

Donald Trump promised when he ran for president in 2016 that “whoever wants health care is going to have it,” but four years later, rural hospitals are at risk of shutting down, leaving Mainers few options for receiving the care they need. Instead of protecting health care for rural Americans, Trump has fought to cut or eliminate programs funding rural health care, including repeatedly attempting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, while his failed pandemic response threatens the financial viability of rural health care providers. For Maine, where many rural hospitals have closed or are facing bankruptcy, those broken promises have been devastating.

“Donald Trump has spent the last four years putting the health care of rural Mainers at risk,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra. “From his draconian attempts to cut Medicaid funding, to his attempts to sabotage the health care law that provides significant dollars for rural health care providers, to his failed pandemic response that has caused dramatic revenue loss for rural hospitals, rural health care is in crisis. To make sure that Maine’s rural communities have access to the health care they need, we must elect Joe Biden in November.”

BACKGROUND ON TRUMP’S FAILURES ON RURAL HEALTH CARE

Trump has fought to cut or eliminate programs that fund rural health care providers.

• Trump has repeatedly sought to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, which would disproportionately hurt rural areas.
   
  • Every single Trump budget has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts.
     
  • Medicaid cuts disproportionately threaten rural populations and health care providers because a greater proportion of rural Americans qualify for Medicaid vs. urban areas.
     
  • Rural hospitals rely more on Medicaid funding to keep their doors open and are much more likely to close as a result of Medicaid cuts. Since 2010, rural hospitals have been closing at an alarming rate, including two that have closed in Maine.
     
• Trump’s repeated attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act would cut off significant funding for rural health care providers.
   
  • Trump’s latest attempt to do so, a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the ACA, will be heard by the Supreme Court the week after the election. 
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  • If that effort is successful, rural health care providers could lose more than $1.3 billion in revenue and more than 34,000 jobs nationwide, which could force even more rural hospitals to close.
     

Trump’s handling of COVID-19 has been particularly harmful for rural hospitals

• Donald Trump downplayed the virus and failed to create a robust national response, even though he knew how deadly it was, and allowed the pandemic to spiral out of control.
   
• The widespread outbreak has been devastating for rural hospitals.
   
  • Rural hospitals have lost most of their revenue, which comes primarily from elective surgeries.
     
  • While Congress did provide relief funding for rural hospitals, most are still under financial duress and the funding is unlikely to reduce the long term problem rural hospitals face: less revenue and higher expenses.