Tag: nebraska
Medicaid Cuts Have Already Shuttered A Hospital In Rural Nebraska

Medicaid Cuts Have Already Shuttered A Hospital In Rural Nebraska

President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" isn't even signed yet, but is already having negative consequences for Americans.

A hospital in rural Nebraska announced on Wednesday that it will shut its doors after more than 30 years, explicitly citing the expected cuts to Medicaid that Congress is set to pass in Trump’s bill.

“Unfortunately, the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Troy Bruntz, the CEO of Community Hospital in McCook, Nebraska, said in a statement to a local news outlet.

Indeed, hospital associations have been warning that the massive cuts to Medicaid in the GOP's bill will decimate rural hospitals, whose patients are often Medicaid recipients. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 17 million people will go uninsured in the next decade because of the bill’s cuts to health care spending. The majority of those losing health care currently have Medicaid, which covers over 71 million Americans and more than 41 percent of births in the United States.

For example, the American Hospital Association, a major industry group, said in a statement after the Senate passed the bill, "This legislation will cause 11.8 million Americans to be displaced from their health care coverage as they move from insured to uninsured status. It also will drive up uncompensated care for hospitals and health systems, which will affect their ability to serve all patients. It will force hospitals to make service line reductions and staff reductions, resulting in longer waiting times in emergency departments and for other essential services, and could ultimately lead to facility closures, especially in rural and underserved areas.”

A group of hospitals and health care systems in Louisiana also warned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), whose district is in the state, that the bill he shepherded through his chamber will devastate hospitals that serve his constituents.

"The impact of provisions in the United States Senate’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reflects an estimated annual loss of more than $4 billion in total Medicaid funding for Louisiana healthcare providers. This will negatively impact our ability to deliver care and have devastating consequences for our state budget," they said in a letter to Johnson. "These economic consequences pale in comparison to the harm that will be caused to residents across the state, regardless of insurance status, who will no longer be able to get the care that they need."

However, rather than try to fix the bill to stave off the awful consequences, Republicans are instead lying about what it does.

Multiple GOP members have falsely claimed that the Medicaid cuts impact only people who refuse to work.

"Look, if you're able-bodied without dependents and you choose not to work, well, you shouldn't be on a public welfare program. That's the bottom line,” Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland said in an interview with the right-wing propaganda outlet Newsmax, adding, “You should be off the public dole. Yes, you will lose your Medicaid coverage. Get a job and get coverage through a job if necessary.”

But able-bodied people who choose not to work are a minuscule portion of Medicaid recipients. In fact, according to health policy outlet KFF:

Among adults under age 65 with Medicaid who do not receive benefits from the Social Security disability programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and who are not also covered by Medicare (referred to hereafter as “Medicaid adults”), 92% were working full or part-time (64%), or not working due to caregiving responsibilities, illness or disability, or school attendance. The remaining 8% of Medicaid adults reported that they are retired, unable to find work, or were not working for another reason.

Republicans passed Trump’s bill after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries ended a blockbuster speech in which he torched Republicans for hurting the poor to pay for tax cuts that benefit the rich.

“Leadership requires courage, conviction, compassion—and yet what we have seen from this administration and co-conspirators on the Republican side of the aisle is cruelty, chaos and corruption,” Jeffries said in the speech, according to The New York Times.

Jeffries added that the GOP bill is “an extraordinary assault on the health care of the American people.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'More Than A Little Stupid': Republicans Try To Kill Renewable Energy

'More Than A Little Stupid': Republicans Try To Kill Renewable Energy

Wyoming is the second windiest state, after Nebraska. It's obvious why the wind power industry is investing $10 billion there. And it's hard to see why any state politician would oppose this. But some have. Wyoming is one of those fossil-fuel producing states in which so-called conservatives feel obligated — or are paid — to stop competition from clean energy. Texas is another.

Wyoming State Sen. Larry Hicks proposed a temporary ban on renewable energy projects. "It does one thing: puts a moratorium on wind and solar for the next five years," he said. "It's a simple little bill."

A "simple," five-year plan? How do you say, "Aw, shucks" in Russian?

Hicks swiftly diverted blame to California: "Our friends on the 'left coast' with their renewable portfolio demands, eliminating fossil fuels and moving in a direction that's unsustainable."

We can't untie this knot of confused ideology. But let's point out that renewable energy is the only kind of energy that is, by definition, sustainable. Wyoming may have coal, oil and gas. But it has wind forever.

This hostility toward wind power is even weirder in Texas. Texas harvests more electricity from wind than any other state, or nearly 28 percent of all wind-generated electricity in the U.S. In one recent week, nearly half of Texas's electricity came from solar and wind power.

The key for these renewables is batteries that can store power when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Texas has been crowned "ground zero" for a U.S. battery boom. Last year it switched on more power stored in batteries than California did.

Texas was expected to double its storage capacity this year — that is, until Donald Trump slapped huge tariffs on China. More than two-thirds of imported batteries come from China.

In March, the Texas Senate passed a mandate that half of all new power capacity come from sources other than battery storage. In other words, at least 50 percent of all new power plant capacity had to be produced from coal, natural gas, and oil. (The natural gas industry needed propping.)

Back in Wyoming, lawmakers wedded to fossil fuels are complaining that large wind and solar projects are fundamentally changing the look of Wyoming's wide-open spaces. That's ignoring the aesthetics of Wyoming's coal pits, wide open craters that stretch for miles.

Wyoming is over 63 times the size of Rhode Island, with less than half the population of the Ocean State. There are dozens of wind turbines in Rhode Island, onshore and off. More are planned with minimal complaint. Wyoming could easily accommodate new wind projects under its big sky.

There does exist public support for clean energy in Wyoming, which is why Hicks' initiative failed. Gov. Mark Gordon tried to bridge the differences by endorsing an "all of the above energy strategy." He wants to keep Wyoming as "the energy state" but also to address climate change by developing clean renewables.

The far-right Freedom Caucus went after Gordon for acknowledging climate change. It introduced a bill designed to stop the state from pursuing any carbon reduction targets and titled it "Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again."

A pragmatic Republican, Gordon called such proposals as "a little bit stupid."

The bottom line is that Wyoming continues to develop wind energy projects. The Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project, now under construction near Rawlins, will be the nation's largest wind farm.

Much of what happens from here on in depends on Washington. The recently passed House bill strips away subsidies for renewables. How it fares in the Senate remains to be seen. Suffice it to say, slowing America's move to cleaner and also cheaper energy is more than a little bit stupid.

Froma Harrop is an award-winning journalist who covers politics, economics, and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Mike Flood of Nebraska

Struggling To Fund Trump Tax Scam, House GOP Urges 'Sacrifice'

President Donald Trump on Thursday met with House Republican leaders and laid out his demands to cut taxes for the rich, as well as his proposal to end taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security.

Trump's tax proposal could cost as much as $11 trillion—yes, trillion with a T—over the next 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce the federal budget deficit. It's an astronomical number that, without corresponding cuts, would make the debt at least 132 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States, according to the CRFB.

Because the procedural mechanism Republicans want to use to pass Trump's policy agenda requires that legislation generally not add to the federal debt, that means Republicans would have to offset the tax cuts with massive amounts of cuts elsewhere in the budget.

And even GOP lawmakers are admitting the cuts they’ll need to make will be painful for the American people.

"It will be littered with a collection of ideas, some of which Americans are going to really not be for, but hey, if we don't sacrifice, if we don't understand that this is going to be a painful process, nothing’s going to change," Republican Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, referring to the forthcoming GOP budget that will be used to pass Trump's tax-cut agenda.

“My message to the American people is: We as a nation, as Americans, have to recognize that this is such a big problem—our debt—that we’re going to have to say no to some programs that we like but we simply can’t afford,” he added.

Republicans have been circulating proposed cuts, including deeply slashing Medicaid—which insures more than 72 million low-income Americans, or more than 20 percent of the U.S. population.

Also on the list? Axing tax breaks to make child care and higher education more affordable. Major cuts to food stamps. Taxing scholarship money. And curtailing employer transportation benefits that make commuting more affordable.

Of course, pain for the American people would come only if Republicans pass the legislation, which is in doubt.

After meeting behind closed doors for five hours on Thursday, House Republicans still don't have an agreed-upon framework for how to move forward, Politico reported.

That comes after House Republicans couldn't agree to a framework during a recent three-day retreat.

And even if they do figure out a framework, getting it passed will be a separate story since the draconian cuts necessary to cut taxes for the rich would politically damage GOP lawmakers in swing seats.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York is expected to soon be confirmed as United Nations ambassador, meaning that Republicans will then have just 217 seats in the House. In other words, for months, their leadership won’t be able to lose a single House vote if they want this tax bill to pass.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Do Kansas And Nebraska Polls Mean More Bad News For Trump?

Do Kansas And Nebraska Polls Mean More Bad News For Trump?

Saturday’s Iowa Selzer poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa 47-44 isn’t the only poll suggesting that something big is happening in our country.

Donald Trump won Iowa in 2020 by an eight-point margin. If Selzer’s numbers hold up, it would make an 11-point swing toward Harris in the state.

In Kansas, the Kansas Speak poll by the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State University found Trump winning the state by a meager 5-point margin, 48-43. Trump won the state in 2020 by 15. If the poll is right, it would mark a 10-point shift, similar to Iowa.

For reference, in 2020 the poll predicted a 14.4 percent Trump victory. He won the state by 14.6 percent.

And Siena recently polled Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District for The New York Times, finding Harris beating Trump 54-42, or 12 points. Nebraska allocates a single electoral vote to the winner of each of the state’s three congressional districts (including its "blue dot" Omaha district), and Joe Biden won it 52-46 in 2020. If the Times is right, that’s a six-point shift to the left in yet another midwestern rural-ish district.

There is something happening in rural America, in exactly the kind of districts that Trump and Republicans are depending as the foundation of their electoral chances.

And it all comes down to women.

“Independent voters, who had consistently supported Trump in the leadup to this election, now break for Harris. That’s driven by the strength of independent women, who back Harris by a 28-point margin, while independent men support Trump, but by a smaller margin,” the Des Moines Register reported, digging into the Selzer poll’s crosstabs. “Similarly, senior voters who are 65 and older favor Harris. But senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63 percent to 28 percent, while senior men favor her by just two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent.”

Those Kansas and Nebraska results only make sense if that same dynamic is playing out in the broader midwest.

And if it is? Look out, because this election will look a lot different than everyone has been assuming thus far.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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