TUCSON, Ariz. — President Donald Trump signed his 1,200-page tax and policy bill July 4th, extending his 2017 tax cuts, adding funding to border security and raising the federal debt by estimates of more than three trillion dollars in the next decade.
The bill also cuts millions of dollars in funding to programs like SNAP and Medicaid which is concerning to rural hospitals like Benson Hospital.
That's where Dr. Barbara Hartley works. She says she's been taking care of the Benson community for over 25 years.
“Benson is kind of a blue collar town for the most part," Hartley said. "A lot of people come here to retire, so [I've] had a lot of Medicare and older patients."
She says those are the patients that are likely to be the victims of Medicaid cuts, which in turn will cost the 22-bed hospital more money if patients are unable to pay for their care.
“If you’re a hospital the size of UMC or TMC, and you have 700 beds, you have a bigger group of people who are paying who will help defray the cost of the people you still need to treat," she said. "Whereas here, if we have a large increase in the number of people who can’t pay, it affects everyone’s care.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that millions of Americans will lose healthcare over the next decade as a result of the bill.
Benson Hospital's CEO Gary Kartchner estimates that 20% of the patients at Benson Hospital are covered by AHCCCS, Arizona's name for Medicaid.
The hospital will still treat emergency patients without insurance, but the cost of their care will be covered by the hospital, tightening their budget. In 2024, hospital staff says they spent $850,000 in uncompensated care.
The National Rural Health Association estimated that rural hospitals will, on average, lose 21 cents of every dollar they're used to getting from Medicaid funding.
“What services am I potentially going to have to cut," Kartchner asked. "There’s a lot of services we do that don’t make a ton of money that are critical for people in the area so that they don’t have to drive to Tucson. I say all the time the I-10 between Benson and Tucson may as well be the Grand Canyon for a lot of our patients.”
Harley says this means the hospital and the medical professionals there will need to stretch their resources to ensure they're able to provide care to everyone who needs it since many will struggle to drive to Tucson or Sierra Vista.
“We have a large population of people who don’t have the money to have a reliable car or they’re not able to drive anymore… We have special clinic down the road and we have specialists who come here. That’s the kind of stuff we’re going to lose because of this bill.”
Kartchner also added that as the town's second largest employer, cuts to Benson Hospital's funding will trickle down into the community.
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