'Not an accident': Trump's GOP gets blame as rural hospitals start to close

Hospitals and healthcare clinics across the US have been announcing layoffs, service cuts, and closures in the weeks since Republicans passed a budget law that’s estimated to slash spending on Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

Monday reporting by CNN highlighted that Augusta Medical Group is closing three of its rural clinics in Virginia. The company said in a statement earlier this month that the closures were “part of Augusta Health’s ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the resulting realities for healthcare delivery.”

The CNN report noted that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger recently campaigned in Buena Vista, one of the rural communities that will be losing its clinic, to make the case that the cuts in the GOP’s budget law should be reversed.

Tim Layton, an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, told CNN that rural areas figure to be particularly vulnerable to the Medicaid cuts given their lower population densities.

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

Layton also dismissed Republicans’ claims to have created protections for rural hospitals with a $50 billion rural health fund, as he described it as a “short-term patch” that will “go pretty quick.” KFF earlier this year estimated that rural Medicaid spending would fall by $137 billion as a result of the GOP law, which is nearly triple the money allocated by the health fund.

Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general, seized on the CNN report and used it to tie incumbent Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to the national Republican Party’s policy agenda under President Donald Trump.

“The Big Bill causing three rural clinics in Virginia to close is just the tip of the iceberg,” he wrote in a social media post. “And it’s happening because Jason Miyares is too scared to fight against Trump’s Medicaid cuts that will throw nearly 300,000 Virginians off their healthcare.”

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten also ripped the GOP for passing Medicaid cuts that are hurting the communities they represent.

“Hundreds of healthcare providers in rural areas depend on Medicaid funding to keep doors open and care for patients,” she wrote. “But Trump’s Big Ugly Bill cuts millions from Medicaid, leaving these healthcare providers in jeopardy.”

Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy, said that the cuts to Medicaid looked particularly bad politically for Republicans when contrasted to the tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high-income Americans.

“These closures are the congressional Republican agenda in action: cuts to healthcare for rural moms and families, tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires,” Tal said. “These closures are not an accident—they are the direct result of a law written to serve the wealthy and leave working people behind, and unless Republicans in Congress reverse course, more working-class Americans will be left behind while the rich get even richer.”