Republican Medicaid cuts mean hospital closures and maternal health deserts for rural Pennsylvanians

Hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians will lose coverage if Republicans push through their $625 billion cut to Medicaid. 

Communities across rural Pennsylvania are going to be some of the hardest hit if Republicans push through their $625 billion Medicaid cuts in order to pay for President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts. 

“ In rural Pennsylvania, the much more significant percentage of patients are on Medicaid and Medicare,” State Rep. Arvind Venkat (D-Allegheny), the only emergency room physician to serve in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, said in an interview with The Keystone. “If you start to take Medicaid dollars away in whatever matter, then the financial situation does not work for rural hospitals especially.”

Rural communities have been hit hard by hospital closures and mergers over the past 20 years. During that time, 33 hospitals closed across the commonwealth with nine closures happening in rural areas. 

“This is a math problem,” Venkat explained. When a hospital in rural Pennsylvania has a population that is 40% Medicare, 35% Medicaid, and the rest either uninsured or commercially insured, they’re dependent on Medicaid reimbursement and Medicare reimbursement in order to survive to provide the services they need.” 

Polling data from Data for Progress shows that cutting Medicaid is deeply unpopular across the commonwealth with only 9% of those polled supporting it. 

Medicaid supports close to 2 million adults and 1.4 million children throughout the commonwealth and the proposed cuts could slash $2 to $5 billion in federal funding for Pennsylvania. 

The program is also responsible for covering 34% of births in the state, and these cuts could exacerbate growing maternal health deserts in rural Pennsylvania.

“If Medicaid goes down as is absolutely being advocated for, then as a result we will no longer have those hospitals, and so folks will need to travel longer,” Venkat added.

Go Erie reported last year that 38 hospitals across the state have had to shut down their labor and delivery units over the past 20 years, and 18 of those hospitals were in rural areas, forcing patients to travel further for necessary care. 

“ Medicaid is responsible for one in every three births in Pennsylvania, and as a result, you will see more maternal health deserts and obstetric deserts. And it’ll go from there,” Venkat said.