Three Rural Virginia Health Clinics Close Due To Mega Bill

By design the worse impacts of the "big beautiful bill" pushed by the Felon and passed by congressional Republicans will not fully hit home until after the 2026 mid-term elections, the hope being that Republican and MAGA voters will not realize how badly they have been betrayed so that billionaires and the super wealth can enjoy huge tax cuts.  Yet some of the betrayal of average Americans and rural areas is beginning to become visible as health insurance premiums are soaring and already, some rural health clinics, including three in Southwest Virginia, are already closing in anticipation of the coming large cuts to Medicaid funding.  Rural hospitals and rural health clinics tend to be far more reliant on Medicaid to remain open and studies have shown that over 300 rural hospitals may be threatened with closure. Here in Virginia, the gubernatorial candidates have very different views of the "big beautiful bill" and what needs to be done, Republican Winsome Sears has praised the bill and has no workable solution to avoid thousands of Virginians losing health care coverage.  Her Democrat opponent, Abigail Spanberger has both condemned the GOP mega bill and is seeking solutions and is vowing to fight the harm the Felon and GOP are inflicting on Virginia.  Once again, voters in Southwest Virginia have overwhelmingly voted against their own economic best interests - something that has been happening for decades. A piece at CNN looks at the impact of the Trump/GOP's "big beautiful bill" here in Virginia and elsewhere:

Exactly two months after President Donald Trump signed his policy megabill in a July 4 celebration at the White House, a Virginia health care company blamed the law for the closure of three rural clinics serving communities along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The closures, Augusta Medical Group said in its statement, were part of the company’s “ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the resulting realities for healthcare delivery.”

Rural health providers that rely on Medicaid funding were already under strain before the bill cut federal health spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Now, Democrats are linking that crisis to Trump and Republicans in elections this year and next.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger recently campaigned in Buena Vista, a 6,600-person town that is losing its clinic, as she tries to improve her party’s standing with rural voters ahead of this fall’s election. Candidates for governor, potentially faced with the job of navigating the cuts, have been among the most vocal about the threats to rural health care, including Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Rob Sand in Iowa, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and former Biden administration Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in New Mexico.

“Rural hospitals are closing, at the end of the day. We’re seeing the tip of the iceberg here in Virginia, and it’s a sign of what’s to come,” said Marshall Cohen, a veteran Democratic strategist at the political firm KMM Strategies.

Under the legislation, Medicaid spending is set to fall by more than $900 billion over the next 10 years, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. About 7.5 million more people would be uninsured in 2034 due to the policy changes, with 5.3 million of them being affected by the addition of work requirements for many low-income adult enrollees, according to the CBO’s most recent analysis.

The work requirements are likely to affect rural communities more, said Tim Layton, an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, because it’s harder for residents in those communities to find employment.

“You can expect those places to be impacted by now having people who don’t even have Medicaid,” Layton said. “With fewer people to spread fixed costs across, it becomes harder and harder to stay open.”

Rural health care providers disproportionately rely on Medicaid enrollees. They were already struggling with limited patient pools and long-term population loss.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina, cited in a letter by Democratic senators opposing the GOP legislation, identified 338 rural health facilities nationwide endangered by the policy changes, including six total in Virginia.

Candice Crow, a mother of four children who have autism, heavily relies on the Bon Secours - Southampton Medical Center in Franklin, Virginia, one of the facilities on the researchers’ list. She’s been raising concerns with local media and spoke to CNN. . . . . “Every minute counts when it comes to emergencies. This could cost someone their life, so you’re taking away their lifeline.”

To alleviate the impact of the cuts, Republicans in Washington created a $50 billion fund for rural health providers, inviting “all 50 states to apply for funding to address each state’s specific rural health challenges.”

Layton said the rural health care fund was a “short-term patch,” noting that “$50 billion will go pretty quick.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a national nonprofit focused on health policy, wrote in a July study that “federal Medicaid spending in rural areas is estimated to decline by $137 billion, more than the $50 billion appropriated for the rural health fund.”

Pete Barlow is a Democrat running to unseat Cline and lives in Augusta County, where two of the affected clinics are. “This administration has really taken a bloody ax to rural health care. It’s incredible, and it’s going to have downstream effects for years to come,” Barlow told CNN.

He says that as he speaks to people in the community, they don’t always immediately “connect the dots” about why they are losing services, but it’s a recipe for eventually breeding deep frustration. “How is it making America great again for us to be cutting our rural health care? It blows me away,” he said.

Lynlee Thorne, political director of Rural GroundGame, a group supporting Democratic candidates in Virginia, said Democrats are “willing to listen” as they engage with rural voters on the policy changes. According to CNN exit polls, Trump won two-thirds of rural voters in the 2024 election.