GOP Medicaid Cuts Hit Rural America Hardest, Report Finds

Posted June 8, 2017

By Phil Galewitz June 7, 2017

Rural America carried President Donald Trump to his election night upset last November.

Trump Country it may be, but rural counties and small towns also make up Medicaid Country — those parts of the nation whose low-income children and families are most dependent on the federal-state health insurance program, according to a report released Wednesday.

Medicaid’s enrollment has swollen to more than 72 million in recent years, and the ranks of uninsured Americans has fallen to 9 percent in 2015 from 13 percent in 2013. That’s largely due to the Affordable Care Act, which allowed states to expand Medicaid eligibility with federal funds. Thirty-one states plus the District of Columbia did so.

Those gains may be in jeopardy under a GOP- and White House-backed health care measure called the American Health Care Act that would replace major parts of the ACA — known as Obamacare — and dramatically cut federal funding for Medicaid. The House passed the bill in May.

“There is no doubt that children and families in small towns would be disproportionately harmed by cuts to Medicaid,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

According to the center’s new report, Medicaid covered 45 percent of children and 16 percent of adults in small towns and rural areas in 2015.… Continue reading »