Medicaid cuts proposed in the U.S. House reconciliation bill would hurt rural hospitals, a new American Hospital Association analysis found.
Proposed cuts in the House’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act would leave 1.8 million people in rural communities without coverage by 2034, according to the report. It would also equal a $50.4 billion decrease in Medicaid spending on rural hospitals over the next decade.
This would include a $726 million reduction for rural hospitals in Tennessee during that time. The AHA projects that around 16,300 rural residents in the state would lose coverage.
The report underscores that rural hospitals are already struggling. About half of rural hospitals operated at a financial loss in 2023, and nearly 100 have closed or shuttered inpatient services over the past 10 years.
That number includes at least a dozen closures in Tennessee, with one in Greenville, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.
Two-thirds of the public have an unfavorable opinion of the House-passed bill, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Views on the bill are largely partisan. However, the poll did find that most people (83%) view Medicaid favorably regardless of party lines.
The survey further concluded that Republicans think Medicaid savings will come from cutting fraud and waste, while Democrats believe it will come from taking health coverage away from people who need it.
U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-TN, endorsed the Medicaid provisions in a statement released after the House passed the bill.
“This legislation delivers meaningful savings from Medicaid — putting it on a sustainable path to ensure the people it was intended for don’t lose coverage,” she said.
The U.S. Senate released a new version of the bill Monday, with deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House bill. The slash — which includes added work requirements and less federal funding to some states — was proposed to allow for a slower phaseout of clean-energy tax credits from the Biden administration.
Changes to Medicaid would affect Tennessee less than other states, largely because the state has not expanded its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. It is one of 10 states without an expanded program.