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Kentucky currently ranks in the highest risk category for hospital closures due to proposed reductions in Medicaid payments. Rural hospitals rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements to keep their doors open. When those dollars disappear, so do essential services like emergency care, maternity wards, and substance use treatment programs.
Hospital closures don’t just affect those on Medicaid, they impact entire communities by eliminating jobs, increasing travel time for urgent care, and weakening local economies. For many Kentuckians, especially those in rural areas, the nearest hospital is already too many miles away. These changes to Medicaid and the Marketplace could make access to care not just harder, but impossible.
Medicaid also plays a critical role in fighting the state’s addiction crisis. It is the largest payer of substance use disorder treatment in the country. In a state like Kentucky, which has one of the highest overdose death rates nationwide, these funds are essential to expanding access to detox services, counseling, and long-term recovery care.
Other harmful changes in the proposed legislation include:
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Ban on Medicaid funding for nonprofit community providers like Planned Parenthood for a decade, even though the funding supports contraception, cancer screenings, and preventive care for low-income patients, not abortion.
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Failure to extend enhanced tax credits for ACA Marketplace plans, which could cause four million more Americans to lose health coverage.
And the damage won’t stop with health care. According to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, the state could lose up to $1.3 billion in federal funding, resulting in $98 million less in state tax revenue and the loss of more than 12,000 jobs. That means less money for schools, roads, and critical local services.
The proposed legislation has already passed the House and is currently being debated in the Senate. Republicans want to get the bill to the White House by July 4th. These cuts would deepen inequality and force more Kentuckians forgo necessary care. We need policies that move us toward universal coverage, not away from it. We need policies that put people before profits, and health before politics.
Health care is not a luxury. It is a human right.
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