"That ought to do it."
That was Democratic Senator Ron Wyden's sardonic response Wednesday to a new proposal put forward by Senate Finance Committee Republicans whose proposed solution to the devastating impacts of the $800 billion in Medicaid cuts they want to impose is a so-called $15 billion "stabilization fund" for rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid to operate.
Wyden was among several Democrats who appeared fed up this week with Republicans' attempts to paper over the devastation hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts would cause in communities across the United States.
While several Republicans in the House have acknowledged that cutting Medicaid to help fund tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans would harm "vulnerable constituents"—echoing warnings that Democrats and progressive advocates have been shouting for months—Senate GOP lawmakers have also evidently looked at the party's budget reconciliation bill and its Medicaid provider tax decrease, which would slash state funding for Medicaid, and come to terms with the suffering the proposal would inflict on their own voters.
"The devastation to healthcare in the United States will be red and blue," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told the news outlet NOTUS. "Red, white, and blue, across the country, and I think they're hearing from constituents."
According to a report released last week by the AFL-CIO, with states losing Medicaid funding from the provider tax decrease, more than 330 rural hospitals are expected to go out of business if the Republicans manage to pass the reconciliation bill as written.
"This is literal life-and-death for folks who will have to travel even farther to access the healthcare they need," saidGroundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank and advocacy group.
Democrats suggested the apparent panic created by public outrage over the proposed cuts led Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to circulate a memo Wednesday proposing a $15 billion fund for rural hospitals—but not facilities in urban areas, which also serve many Medicaid recipients but lie in largely Democratic areas.
About half the money in the fund would be made available for rural hospitals across the country and the other half would go to specific hospitals chosen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a Republican senator toldThe Hill.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) denounced the proposal as "a slush fund" that exemplified "the corruption" behind the GOP's megabill.
Republicans including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have proposed a larger $100 billion fund for hospitals—a number Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) scoffed at Wednesday—but Democrats were quick to point out that a bigger fund wouldn't reverse the impact of $800 billion in Medicaid cuts.
"The rural hospital fund is a fig leaf that will let them pretend that they can take away hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare reimbursements," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told NOTUS.
Several Democrats and advocates said Republicans were desperately "trying to solve a problem they're creating" by slashing a healthcare program used by more than 71 million Americans.
"The obvious question is, don't create the problem in the first place," Wyden told NOTUS. "Don't create the need for things like disaster funds."