GOP Wrecking Ball Slams Through Medical System

[justaprogressive]

Patients and medical centers are already feeling the pain as several provisions in the GOP’s deadly spending law take immediate effect, either as required or in practice.

Hospitals are closing or actively considering doing so, cutting programs, and laying off staff. Planned Parenthood is warning patients it can no longer accept Medicaid insurance and in one region says it can’t provide services to Medicaid recipients at all, even if the patient doesn’t use Medicaid to pay. And lawmakers in at least five states are planning special sessions to revamp their already-enacted budgets and determine how to handle the cuts, including what cuts they should enact and how to administer the new Medicaid work requirement.

The response puts the lie to an emerging narrative that Republicans cleverly delayed the worst effects of their spending law, and therefore would face no backlash until after the midterm elections.

“There is a sense that the effective dates are pushed out quite a bit, but that’s actually not true. There are a variety of cuts that take effect immediately,” said Edwin Park, research professor at Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy.

Even if an effective date is months or years from now, Park added, states and providers would never “wait till the last minute to make cuts, they start making cuts now in anticipation of future revenue shortfalls, future increases of uncompensated care and lower payment rates.”

That would nullify the GOP boast that they designed their budget package to minimize near-term pain. “At a big-picture level, just because a particular cut that may affect a state or a provider doesn’t have an effective date until 2028, they may make cuts in advance,” Park said.

https://prospect.org/health/2025-07-15-gop-wrecking-ball-slams-through-medical-system/

[Baitball Blogger]

1. How do they determine who gets pushed off?

[Johnny2X2X]

2. Probably based on race

And I'm not even joking.

[hatrack]

3. Those with the least money die first . . . so yeah, red state residents.

.

[pinkstarburst]

4. We are already seeing medical offices where I live

announce that they will no longer take Medicare or Medicaid patients, new patients or existing ones. This is really concerning in a big urban city that's been growing faster than it's been adding doctors (and where it's already hard to find someone to see in many specialties.)

[newdeal2]

5. Hospitals have to plan long term

They are slow moving behemoths that need to make changes now to be ready. So it’s correct that we will see the effects faster than the bill specifies. Hopefully voters see that before the next election.