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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA clinic blames its closing on Trump's Medicaid cuts. Patients don't buy it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/13/trump-tax-bill-medicaid-rural/A clinic blames its closing on Trumps Medicaid cuts. Patients dont buy it.
A clinic in rural Nebraska has become a political flash point after tying its looming closure to Trumps law cutting Medicaid.
July 13, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
By Hannah Knowles
CURTIS, Nebraska The only health clinic here is shutting down, and the hospital CEO has blamed Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trumps signature legislation. But residents of Curtis a one-stoplight town in deep-red farm country arent buying that explanation.
Anyone whos saying that Medicaid cuts is why theyre closing is a liar, April Roberts said, as she oversaw lunch at the Curtis Area Senior Center.
The retirees trickling in for fried chicken and soft-serve ice cream will be hit hardest when the clinic closes this fall, Roberts fears. Seniors who sometimes go in multiple times a month to have blood drawn will have to drive 40 miles to the next nearest health center. Sick people, she worries, will put off checkups and get sicker.
Arriving for lunch, retired Navy veteran Jim Christensen said hed read an op-ed that tried to blame everything on Trump.
Horse feathers, he said, dismissing the idea.
Curtis has become an early test case of the politics of Trumps agenda in rural America, where voters vulnerable to Medicaid cuts in Trumps One Big Beautiful Bill law are reluctant to blame the president or congressional Republicans who approved it. Many people in Curtis have directed their frustration at their hospital system instead of their representatives in Washington.
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elleng
(140,194 posts)Not as inherently smart as we thought, eh???
mdbl
(6,961 posts)JI7
(92,341 posts)dutch777
(4,631 posts)...marginal and as Medicaid cuts are not immediate their blaming Trump and his cuts is a bit soon and too convenient. But, to those who now have to go an extra 40 miles for routine monitoring and blood tests, the result is the same no matter who they want to blame. And I suspect even with going the 40 miles they only have one system to choose from for their health care. Rural health is only going to get harder and it was already bad in many locations.
bucolic_frolic
(51,516 posts)Marginal profitability if any will swing to losses with Medicaid cuts.
Wounded Bear
(62,534 posts)If you go full on profit margin only, they can't survive financially.
Srkdqltr
(8,672 posts)newdeal2
(3,422 posts)Theyre welcome to open up their own hospital if they feel like theyll do better.
gab13by13
(28,890 posts)disappeared decades ago.
I loved watching Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC. He decided to travel the country exposing crony capitalism, the shareholders who own MSNBC didn't like that.
The day they fired him he was in tears saying his goodbye.
I miss him. Truth tellers get fired, even on MSNBC, Nicolle, Chris, and Lawrence better keep resume's handy. Rachel is just a part timer.
NoMoreRepugs
(11,492 posts)mdbl
(6,961 posts)Especially when they let stoopid channels like Fux Nooze brainwash them.
senseandsensibility
(22,943 posts)Expect to read/see a lot of those as the corporate media works to build a narrative that the trump voters don't blame trump for medicaid cuts.
enough
(13,575 posts)maxrandb
(16,693 posts)Donnie Dipshit and the Retrumplican Party will literally murder their relatives and they will NEVER stop blaming the "radical leftist commie pizza pedophiles".
The only solution will be when these mindless, brainwashed drones die off.
In a way, I support this Retrumplican plan.
Mr. Ected
(9,704 posts)Ever the victims, never the wiser.
Why would the hospital system suddenly abandon them, tell me that.
Q-level mental gymnastics being performed here to blame a nameless yet threatening force for the closure.
Xavier Breath
(5,850 posts)choie
(5,846 posts)Cult members.
dsc
(53,031 posts)since the cuts have yet to happen. But since Nebraska didn't expand Medicaid that would make sense.
kerry-is-my-prez
(10,077 posts)Also a number in California and New York State.
dsc
(53,031 posts)I am frankly amazed that no hospitals in my area were on the list of ones that might close due to the cuts. I live around 20 miles from three different rural hospitals that aren't on the list. I guess the fact they are at least nominally part of a big chain helps. In NC our Medicaid expansion may well go down thanks to the Trump bill which will have to very much hurt our rural hospitals. We do have one thing which helps. We have a lot of tri care patients proportionally.
msongs
(71,827 posts)Demovictory9
(36,798 posts)iemanja
(56,283 posts)So this is odd.
Greg_In_SF
(385 posts)There must be another reason for this.
Maru Kitteh
(30,392 posts)I grew up with people just like that. Proud of the fact that theyve never been anywhere, never sought higher education, cant find Connecticut on a map. Freakin mouth-breathers who look down on ANYONE who isnt exactly like they are.
You better be straight and white as a magnolia flower.
mcar
(44,945 posts)Johonny
(24,198 posts)So they have to pretend they didn't screw themselves.
This is why their lives will continue to get worse. They support politicians that don't respect them and don't support them and know they're too fucking stupid to admit it.
I'm glad they're getting what they voted for, though.
Permanut
(7,331 posts)Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama are responsible. Started that project after completing the Epstein files.