ICYMI – E&E News: ‘I could feel the roof pick up.’ Hospitals face new disaster risks under Trump.
Davante Lewis in E&E News: Trump’s Health Care Cuts Could “Leave Our Disaster Zones in Danger Without Emergency Care When Hurricanes Strike.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last month, Sabotaging Our Safety released four reports exposing how Donald Trump is putting communities across the country at risk through a dangerous one-two punch: gutting disaster preparedness programs while slashing health care funding, cutting coverage, and forcing hospitals to close their doors. The reports detail the impacts in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia. Politico’s E&E News covered the reports, noting that many hospitals at risk of closing are located in areas the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has identified as disaster-prone.
See coverage below:
E&E News: ‘I could feel the roof pick up.’ Hospitals face new disaster risks under Trump.
Health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act are set to increase next year. The expiration of some subsidies that were keeping costs down for patients is now at the center of a battle over the government shutdown. It could mean small rural hospitals are faced with caring for more uninsured patients who can’t pay their medical bills.
The subsidy expiration follows changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act included in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this year that some estimates say could force more than 300 rural hospitals to close.
Rural hospitals will face additional financial strain if the number of uninsured patients increases due to the expected expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
That could push 3.8 million people annually out of Obamacare, leaving them uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“We will see sticker shock,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure who was the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Biden administration.
Rural hospitals could have to foot the bill when uninsured people need health care. That could lead to some of them closing.
“No one should have to forgo health care due to changes in coverage, and no one should have to drive hours more for care during or after a hurricane because their rural hospital shut down,” Brooks-LaSure said.
In some states, hospitals at risk of closing are in areas that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has identified as being prone to disasters.
One analysis from the University of North Carolina’s Sheps Center for Health Services Research found that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could force more than 300 rural hospitals to close. The analysis was done at the request of Senate Democrats. Thirty-three of those hospitals are in Louisiana, where 21 percent of Medicaid funding for rural hospitals is expected to be cut because of the legislation, according to a bipartisan resolution passed by the state Legislature this summer.
Of the 33 hospitals that could close, eight are in counties that FEMA says are at high risk for disasters, according to an analysis conducted by Sabotaging Our Safety. The advocacy group was formed by left-leaning emergency management and health care officials in the wake of the deadly Texas floods this summer.
Davante Lewis, who serves on the Louisiana Public Service Commission and sits on Sabotaging Our Safety’s advisory board, said the Medicaid cuts could “leave our disaster zones in danger without emergency care when hurricanes strike.”
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