Even when they are doged they do not believe it.
CURTIS, Nebraska - The only health clinic here is shutting down, and the hospital CEO has blamed Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s signature legislation. But residents of Curtis - a one-stoplight town in deep-red farm country - aren’t buying that explanation.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/clinic-blames-closing-trump-medicaid-181319474.html
in the BBB, didn’t they delay cuts till after 2026 midterms ?
Pretty Machiavellian move by the GOP, they know that the Adults who believe the fairy tales they are told will reelect them in 2026 if the cuts don’t happen this year. Problem with that is the Medical Industrial Complex is going to get ahead of the cuts coming by closing small, rural facilities.
And in these large Western States, going to a medical facility in another County could be a long drive. Same thing is probably going to happen in the geographically smaller Midwest States. We’ve all heard of food deserts, it appears there are going to be medical care deserts also.
Honestly though, there is no way out of this. Americans need to feel the consequences of what they voted for, and reconcile it with the fairy tales they are being told. If they like the fairy tales, and don’t mind the extra time, expense, and the quite possibly deadly consequences of having no local medical care, then so be it. Nothing we can do about it.
My Aunt and Uncle kept a small town hospital going from their donations. But they are not alive anymore and their kids have all moved out. It will be interesting to see what happens in all of this chaos.
“Horse feathers,” he said, dismissing the idea."
Nobody says that anymore. That dude must be 120 years old…
Blaming the potential Medicaid cuts for the closure was not honest. Community Hospital was losing money, without serious intervention, they would have closed the Curtis clinic no matter what. The prospects of the OBBBA passing was the nail in the coffin.
An interesting thought exercise - if the OBBBA had failed, would Community Hospital have announced they were no longer closing the clinic? Doubtful.
Here’s a more honest and better message. Rural healthcare facilities are already struggling to survive, with many closing. Medicaid cuts will accelerate closures in the future.
Do “JCs” care about people’s access to medical care? In the early 90s, RS changed it’s health insurance provider, to some jerkwater outfit in Texas that I had never heard of. I was working in Kalamazoo. The nearest “in network” GP was in Grand Rapids, some 50 miles away. My assumption was the new insurance outfit was either the absolute cheapest RS corporate could find, or the CEO was the crony of some honcho at RS corporate in Fort Worth, or both. Accessibility for the expendable Proles who worked in the stores was clearly not a concern. Why would the attitude I saw 30 years ago, not be propagated throughout Shiny-land?
Steve
Fixing the problems of rural heath care is simply impossible without severe disruption to the “health industrial complex” profit model that now runs the nation. Rural areas will become ever more hazardous to health.
A sane health system realizes that health provision is necessary for economic viability, and is by far most efficiently (even if not profitably) provided at specialized rural clinics placed locally. Properly distributed clinics can provide most forms of needed care, and can also be managed to identify and provide quick efficient transport to big hospitals for cases needing dramatic interventions.
But we are not sane, and we will not do anything like that until the pain and mortality become painful and mortal.
I am not so sure about that. If you ran a business and were to see your future profits drying up when you were just barely making it, would you close the business down now or hope you can make it through? I think this happens all the time where business’s will close down a factory or subsidary before it gets so bad they can’t make it anymore. You don’t have to wait till the last minute. I know our hospital is just squeeking by and asked the community for donations.
I’m not so sure about you not being so sure about that. I agree that it makes sense to close a failing business before things get really bad. But the announcement and news blaming Medicaid cuts was not honest. For one, the bill hadn’t even passed. Furthermore, the cuts aren’t set to go into effect until 2026.
Maybe the message was muddled. Maybe the intent was to say that the business has been struggling already, and the future is bleak, especially with proposed cuts to Medicaid. That’s definitely not what I heard, read, and saw.
Messaging is important! I don’t want to defend die-hard TFG supporters for their stubborn support of things that punch them in the face. That said, they’re clearly not connecting the dots on how his policies hurt them.
Yippee-Ki-Yay! Dying just became a whole lot easier.
Living in the big three’s front yard all these years, I have seen the “JC” playbook in action: constant whining that everything bad is the fault of the union, the government, or the Japanese. No surprise that hospital and clinic owners would use the same tactics to duck responsibility.
Steve
Welp, we live in a highly partisan culture, where it’s easier to blame the other side than to acknowledge root causes. Rural healthcare is struggling:
Sure, it’s easy to blame, but blame doesn’t fix the issues.
From the article:
“Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 - one day before the bill’s passage - that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,” the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans.”
The clinic didn’t just blame Medicaid cuts (which were 6% of last year’s revenue). They said it was losing money (financial challenges), dealing with inflation, and finally, the BBB was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Sadly, rural hospitals run on a shoestring budget. The BBB will add a lot of straws.
Im not so sure your not being so sure about me not being sure. Since 2026 is only 6 months ahead it makes since that they would be projecting 2026. It isn’t like it is a decade.
I do not have any problem with the messaging because I understand how hard it is for a small town clinic/hospital to operate. Everyone knows they are already struggling. It makes sense that when the bill was being discussed that they would put out the message that they will have to close if the bill passes. That is how you get your congress people to listen. Now that it has passed and they did exactly what they said, well there you go. Now if the congress would have listened and put better policies in the bill to keep them afloat. Now some people would say “Hey 800 people shouldn’t have their own clinic” and maybe that is true because can 800 people really support any type of healthcare in their community?
You understand it, I understand it, a large percentage of the population who won’t be impacted understands it. Many of those who will be most impacted do not understand it. That’s my concern.
That’s fair. My frustrations are rooted in the fact that information and facts are not penetrating into the communities most impacted by these policies. I’m not super confident that people will automatically change their mind and their vote when they start feeling the pain.
Maybe they need to have another message. Let’s see, how about Epstein forced the deep state to shut down all rural hospitals by black mailing all of our current People in government including the Supreme court and President. That should do it.
Partisanship has nothing to do with it. It is the “JC” imperative to blame all bad things on others, while taking credit for all good things. I have been watching the big three do this for over 50 years. And, saw it up close at companies I worked for.
Steve
Since the Epstein client list has conveniently gone missing, can’t prove there was blackmail.
Steve
We need Proof? You mean like written proof. We can’t just have anecdotal proof like I saw Epstein throw mama from the train type of proof?
I respectfully disagree. Partisanship has everything to do with it. How else can a large population continue to be persuaded to vote against their interests?
First hand, eyewitness, testimony is great. But, what would happen to the witness, for embarrassing TPTB? (for those who missed it, Putin fired one of his ministers a couple weeks ago. The ex-minister was found, a few days later, in a park, with a bullet in his head.)
Steve
Not to seem heartless or anything but this is after all a democracy and perhaps it is time we respect the will of the people. Rural America has made it clear in multiple elections that they do not want government subsidized health care.
If rural America would rather have smaller government than quality health care that’s their choice. I’m not going to worry about it.