Originally published at: Only a Fraction of Republicans’ Much-Touted $50 Billion Rural Health Fund Can Help Struggling Hospitals Pay Their Bills - TPM – Talking Points Memo
As President Donald Trump’s deadline for a massive budget bill drew near early in the summer, Republican Senate leadership needed to corral the support of some members of the conference. The bill would help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy partly through cuts to Medicaid and needed nearly all Republican votes to pass. The…
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More commonly known as a bait and switch!
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Yet the $50 billion fund is largely designed not for shoring up hospitals budgets left by the Medicaid cuts and other gaps in patients’ ability to pay, but for state spending on workforce recruitment and retention, modernization and technological advancement initiatives, and preventative care.
I.e to shore up the salaries of those underpaid hospital CEOs.
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The new season:
Hunger Games for Heathcare
Countdown to watching the Democrats be criticized for not opposing this more vigorously, despite Trump voters getting exactly what they asked for.
Guessing the inland Pacific NW will be getting a lot more blue, once all the old hillbillies are dead.
Friendlier too.
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Lost on RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz:
“First, do no harm” (from the Latin primum non nocere) is a core principle in medicine and ethics, meaning that interventions should avoid causing harm. It is a fundamental guideline from the Hippocratic Oath that requires healthcare professionals to consider potential harm before acting.
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Well, isn’t this the standard Trump “deal”? Say anything – any outrageous lie! – schmooze and shake hands, and assume they won’t read the actual fine print in the contract.
Or, in the case of Congress, don’t give 'em time to read it.
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That’s what gets me: the fine print seems irrelevant when Trump consistently violates the sense of the contract itself. How is any deal possible even in principle when a signatory’s word is no good and the system does not punish that? Same goes for the a Trump infected Republican party.
May have to change the epigram, ETTD to ERTD; Everything Republicans Touch Dies.
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Republicans endorse starving their constituents, closing rural hospitals, and raising health insurance premiums to unaffordable levels.
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Quelle surprise… A republican solution that does not solve the problem but can be abused to transfer wealth to a specific group of people. Shocking, I know.
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Nice report, Layla!
more hospitals closing
Thank you, Republicans. It’s good to know you prioritize ballrooms over healthcare in your own states and districts.
It’s assuring to know not only that the rich will be able to dance in luxury while they flatter the forgetful Trump, but also that they’ll be adorned in the latest fashions and expensive jewelry.
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“… to transfer wealth….” Interesting article in the Guardian by Oona Hathaway noting that the effort “to transfer” wealth and power is not limited to the U.S. but is international in scope. The linternational legal order is being dismantled, Trump and his administration undoing institutions the U. S. helped create. Doing away with the possibility of rural hospitals is ultimately akin to slaughtering people in small boats, law and humanity be damned.
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The fine print was not written until after the bill passed. From the article, “due to Trump administration restrictions on how the fund can be used,” and “Under Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rules for distributing the funds.”
The use of funds problem lies solely with Trump and his cronies. That doesn’t change the fact that the fund is woefully inadequate, about 5% of the cuts according to Layla’s article. The fault for that lies with the GOP Congress.
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This regime should be aware that when the inevitable backlash comes, it’s going to be made much more powerful thanks to its own actions, such as this one. Even MAGA-nauts don’t like seeing their relatives dying in service of making the rich even richer.
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Citation needed. They were perfectly happy to watch their family die from covid while not wearing masks to own the libs, why would this be any different?
There’s a fatalistic streak in America which accepts that you’ll die because you’re poor and can’t afford healthcare that links in with the evangelical Dog’s will very nicely to get the population to accept the unacceptable.
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This is a well-written piece! As Paul Krugman ends his newsletter this morning, this is a manifestation of MAGA’s cruelty.
The political moral is that the humiliating cave over the shutdown isn’t the end of the story. Democrats can and should keep hammering Trump and his party over their indifference to the suffering of ordinary Americans. They need to make sure both that Americans know who’s responsible for surging premiums now and that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will lead to savage cuts in both Medicaid and food stamps after the midterms.
MAGA can’t help being cruel. It can’t even pretend to care about other people’s suffering. And Democrats should take full advantage of this pathology.
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I will call the elephant in the room when no one else will. Minority Leader Schumer and Jeffries need to step aside. They are not up to the task.
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I wonder if anyone in authority will have the temerity to point this shortfall out to the people who will be the most affected.
I wonder how this will be spun to blame the Dems.
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“Strong and Wrong will always beat right and weak”, Bill Clinton.
There is nothing positive about the big dem cave occurring less then a week after a big victory. It makes no sense and causes those who fought and voted demoralized and frustrated. Proving the Republicans are cruel is like proving one plus one equals two, everyone already knows this.
I was particularly vexed about my own senator and Schumer’s right hand man Dick Durban being one of the 8. At first I thought, as he is retiring, that it was to stick it to Schumer for passing over Durbin to be leader when Durbin had been Harry Reid’s deputy. But after some thought and knowing Durbin, I think it is more likely he did it with Schumer’s consent if not blessing. That is Dems needed an eighth and as he is retiring, Durbin took it for team cave.
But caving after winning is on its face such an unnecessary political blunder, seeing this as anything positive is self delusion.
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In the meantime, more than 300 rural hospitals are immediately at risk of closure, and more than 1,000 are at risk in general as of October 2025, according to an analysis by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform’s rural hospitals initiative. More than 75% of the hospitals in either category are in states that went for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The ultimate display of power is being able to fuck over your biggest supporters.
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How else would he be able to find a way to give
More money to the billionaires.
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