Keep Rural Hospitals Open As Lifeline

Floor Speech

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Ms. McBRIDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the rural communities in Delaware and the hospitals that are their lifelines because if the Republican budget is passed, that lifeline will be cut.

Across Delaware, rural hospitals are doing more than just providing care. They are holding communities together. They are delivering babies. They are treating emergencies. They are caring for aging parents. They are anchors of both health and economic stability.

Under this budget, all of that is at risk. For rural hospitals, it means more unpaid bills, more red tape, and more patient bankruptcies. For some rural hospitals, it means closure. When Medicaid is gutted, rural hospitals don't just struggle. They shutter.

Today, over 40 percent of rural hospitals operate at a loss. They rely on Medicaid to keep the lights on and the doors open. Take that funding away, and entire regions lose access to maternity care, cancer treatment, mental health services, and more.

This isn't hypothetical. Before Medicaid expansion, clinics were closing, nurses were being laid off, and people were driving for hours just to see a doctor. Now, the majority party wants to bring that devastation to Delaware, where we have diligently worked to ensure that we have no care deserts.

Even in the places where those hospitals will survive, fewer patients will have coverage.

This budget would impose endless red tape and import the worst parts of the private healthcare system, confusing paperwork and needless bureaucracy, into the Medicaid program.

In total, 16 million people could lose coverage. Millions more could lose access to care in their community. In Delaware, that will mean 40,000 of our neighbors--working families, children, seniors in assisted living, and people managing chronic conditions--getting dropped from coverage.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell you what that means in real life. It means missed chemotherapy appointments because the hospital shuts down. It means laboring mothers being driven 1\1/2\ hours to the nearest delivery room. It means children skipping care for chronic asthma because their pediatrician can't afford to stay open. It means working people in Delaware will skip doctors' appointments because they have lost their insurance, only to end up in the emergency room and facing longer wait times and crushing medical bills.

Rural hospitals are left to absorb the costs while patients are burdened with life-altering debt, and, yes, it means more preventable deaths.

All of this, Mr. Speaker, is just to partially--just partially--pay for tax breaks for billionaires.

I have heard from healthcare leaders across my State who have told me plainly that if this budget passes, they will have to reduce services and lay off staff. Their facilities serve hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of Medicaid patients. They are operating on razor-thin margins already.

This plan would push rural hospitals and clinics over the cliff. Cuts to Medicaid aren't just cuts to line items on a budget. They are cuts to care that keep my constituents alive.

Mr. Speaker, let's be honest about what this is: a budget that raises costs for working families, adds red tape for patients and providers, and gives handouts to billionaires, all while risking the collapse of rural healthcare systems.

If you believe in the dignity of rural communities and if you believe that no one should die because their local hospital couldn't keep its doors open, then join me in opposing this horrible and heartless bill.

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