Augusta Health is sounding the alarm on how the trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts in the Big, Ugly Bill that the U.S. Senate just passed will affect its operations.
Think: disaster.
“These are the largest Medicaid cuts in history, and will disproportionately impact rural and medically underserved communities, such as ours, and drastically increase uncompensated care for hospitals, like Augusta Health,” the hospital posted in a message to its Facebook page on Wednesday.
This, predictably, opened the folks at Augusta Health up to an endless series of comments from MAGA dimwits who have been convinced by Fox News that the Medicaid cuts are about getting lazy people and illegal immigrants off the dole, not taking away healthcare from good, god-fearin’ ‘Muricans like themselves.
They’ll find out soon enough, as will the rest of us for whom Augusta Health is our community hospital.
Twenty-eight percent of Augusta Health’s patients have their healthcare costs covered by Medicaid – that’s well above the national average of Medicaid patients for a hospital, which is 16.7 percent.
Uncomfortable reality to share here: our local economy is lagging way behind the national average, meaning, we have more poor people, and thus, more people who are on Medicaid.
The problem with that for Augusta Health is, even before whatever cuts the MAGAs are going to put in place so that they can give rich people a tax break, Medicaid wasn’t exactly paying its bills.
Augusta Health, with annual revenues at $469 million in 2023, according to its IRS filing for that year, reported a $6.7 million shortfall in reimbursements from Medicaid.
On top of that, the hospital reported providing $9.1 million in financial assistance to patients, in essence, free healthcare.
The deep Medicaid cuts being advanced by MAGA Republicans, like our own Ben Cline, the Sixth District congressman, who was a guest of honor on the Augusta Health campus back in March, will only add to the costs that the hospital will have to eat while also trying to balance its books.
Maybe instead of posing for selfies, the folks there at Augusta Health could have better used their time trying to convince Cline to actually represent the interests of his constituents for once.
ICYMI
- Augusta Health, Valley Community Services Board brace for impact of Medicaid cuts
- Ben Cline uses Augusta Health for PR: Still no town halls on the schedule
- Warner, Kaine warn of GOP bill’s impact on Medicaid, hospitals in rural Virginia
- MAGA Congressman Ben Cline tries to explain away vote to slash Medicare, Medicaid
- Republicans are going to gut Medicaid to fund tax cuts for the 1 percent
- Trump federal-grant freeze will have impacts on hospitals, Medicaid recipients
- Ben Cline meets with Elon Musk, shares thoughts on cutting Social Security, Medicaid
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Chris Graham
