Part 2: One Big Beautiful Bill Cuts Rural Health Care

Today is part two of our two-part series featuring Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. He breaks down what he calls the three major lenses of healthcare and the impact funding cuts into one big, beautiful bill could have on each lens.

“People don't realize there's actually there's three lenses here. Number one is the direct jobs at a hospital, and that's huge, largest employer in most County, and when that goes away, you lose all those jobs. Second Tier is the jobs that rely on the hospital. And think about it as an example of your local florist and the flowers they take to patients, and the local food service and the local all the all the ancillary things.”

Morgan says the third lens is the most detrimental because it carries ripple effects that spread beyond the immediate cuts.

“The third one is the most nefarious, and people don't think about that. And is, if you lose that hospital family, young families are not going to move there or they're going to leave because of lack of access to maternity care. Number one, seniors can't live in a place that they're more than 30 minutes from 24/7 emergency rooms, so you're going to lose those and big employers are not going to move into your town if they don't have access to health care. So there's three a direct and indirect and then the really kind of hidden economic impact.”

Alan Morgan, National Rural Health Association, CEO.