{"id":44326,"date":"2025-07-03T19:16:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T00:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=44326"},"modified":"2025-07-03T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T01:42:30","slug":"sanders-points-to-nebraska-medical-center-closure-after-gop-bill-passes-dark-day-for-rural-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=44326","title":{"rendered":"Sanders points to Nebraska medical center closure after GOP bill passes: \u2018Dark day for rural America\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Sen.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/bernie-sanders\/\"><u>Bernie Sanders\u2002<\/u><\/a>(I-Vt.) said the Thursday passage of the GOP\u2019s spending bill symbolizes a \u201cdark day for rural America,\u201d citing cuts to federal funding for medical centers and hospitals in rural and more remote areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile Republicans celebrate the passage of the largest Medicaid cut in history, the Curtis Medical Center in Nebraska announced it will shut down as a result of these horrific cuts \u2014 the first of many hospitals to close,\u201d Sanders wrote in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenSanders\/status\/1940857241252647167\"><u>Thursday statement<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;on the social platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is a dark day for rural America and for our country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">An hour prior, Community Hospital in McCook, Neb., announced its closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUnfortunately, 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,\u201d Troy Bruntz, president and CEO of Community Hospital, said in a news release, according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nebraskapublicmedia.org\/en\/news\/news-articles\/southwest-nebraska-hospital-announces-plans-to-close-blames-uncertainty-over-funding\/\"><u>Nebraska Public Media<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Six of the state\u2019s hospitals could be forced to close due to provisions in the \u201cbig, beautiful bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe currently have six hospitals that we feel are in a critical financial state, three that are in an impending kind of closure or conversion over to the rural emergency hospital model,\u201d Jed Hansen, executive director for the Nebraska Rural Health Association, said during a meeting this week, as reported by Nebraska Public Media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe would likely see the closures within a year to two years of once [the bill is] fully enacted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Other states are facing similar shutdowns due to reduced funding under the Republican-backed bill approved by Congress.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">A total of 760 hospitals are at risk of closure nationwide, according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.beckershospitalreview.com\/finance\/760-hospitals-at-risk-of-closure-state-by-state\/\"><u>Becker\u2019s Hospital Review<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Fifteen hospitals in New York are also at risk of closure in GOP districts, according to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/fiscalpolicy.org\/new-york-hospitals-will-close-under-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act\"><u>Fiscal Policy Institute<\/u><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/5384921-sanders-nebraska-medical-center-closure-after-gop-bill\/\">thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen.&nbsp;Bernie Sanders\u2002(I-Vt.) said the Thursday passage of the GOP\u2019s spending bill symbolizes a \u201cdark day for rural America,\u201d citing cuts to federal funding for medical centers and hospitals in rural and more remote areas. \u201cWhile Republicans celebrate the passage of the largest Medicaid cut in history, the Curtis Medical Center in Nebraska announced it will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":44327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[5363,33843,33844,2514,4885],"class_list":["post-44326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-closures","tag-gop-bill","tag-medical-center","tag-nebraska","tag-sanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44328,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44326\/revisions\/44328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}