Ohio’s rural hospitals provide emergency care, deliver babies, and treat cancer patients in communities where other health care providers may be hours away. They are also among the largest employers in the small towns they serve.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) slashes Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide. Ohio is expected to lose more than $33 billion in federal Medicaid funding over the next decade, including an estimated $5.6 billion in support for health care in rural communities.
Why was health care funding slashed? The answer is simple and simply infuriating: to help pay for tax cuts that benefit Vivek and other billionaires.
Eleven rural hospitals in Ohio are at risk of closure or severe service reductions due to their financial condition and dependence on Medicaid.
Vivek Ramaswamy backed the BBB, but he has not presented a plan to replace the billions of dollars Ohio will lose, protect rural hospitals or prevent communities from losing emergency, maternity and other essential health-care services.
Protect health care in every Ohio community. Sign our petition and tell your state legislators to keep Ohio’s rural hospitals open.
Why This Matters
Many of Ohio’s rural hospitals were struggling before the Big Beautiful Bill became law. They serve small populations, treat a high percentage of Medicare and Medicaid patients, and operate with little or no profit.
When patients are robbed of Medicaid coverage to pay for giveaways to the rich, hospitals do not stop treating them. They continue to provide care for which they may never be paid. As a result, the cost of uncompensated care skyrockets, placing even greater financial pressure on already-fragile hospitals.
Eleven Ohio rural hospitals have been identified as at risk.
An analysis performed by the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill identified 338 rural hospitals that could face closure or service reductions because of the Medicaid cuts. Eleven are in Ohio:
- Southern Ohio Medical Center in Scioto County
- Wayne Hospital Company in Darke County
- East Liverpool City Hospital in Columbiana County
- Coshocton Regional Medical Center in Coshocton County
- Twin City Medical Center in Tuscarawas County
- Harrison Community Hospital in Harrison County
- Bucyrus Community Hospital in Crawford County
- Holzer Medical Center in Jackson County
- Galion Community Hospital, serving Crawford, Morrow and Richland counties
- Adams County Regional Medical Center in Adams County
- Fayette County Memorial Hospital in Fayette County
The hospitals made the list because they meet financial-risk standards based on sustained operating losses, rely heavily on Medicaid or both. The funding cuts in the BBB could force some of them to eliminate life-saving services, reduce staffing or shut their doors.
A hospital closure affects the entire community.
When a rural hospital closes, residents may be forced to travel long distances for emergency care. Those additional miles, minutes, and hours can be the difference between life and death for someone suffering a heart attack, stroke or serious injury.
Closures and service reductions may also mean:
- Longer ambulance trips for emergency care
- Fewer maternity and obstetric services
- Reduced access to mental-health and addiction treatment
- Fewer doctors, nurses and specialists in rural communities
- Lost jobs and reduced economic activity
- Increased pressure on the surrounding hospitals and emergency departments
Ohio has already lost rural health-care services. The state cannot afford policies that make the problem worse.
Where does Vivek Ramaswamy stand?
Ramaswamy supported the Big Beautiful Bill despite the devastating impact it will have on rural hospitals and the families who depend on them. Now that the damage is done, he has not presented a comprehensive plan to:
- Replace Ohio’s lost federal Medicaid funding
- Protect hospitals from reduced Medicaid payments
- Prevent rural hospital closures
- Preserve maternity and emergency services
- Address doctor, nurse, and other health-care worker shortages
- Guarantee that eligible Ohioans will not lose coverage because of bureaucracy and red tape
Protect rural hospitals and health-care access.
No Ohio family should lose access to emergency care because of where they live. No expectant mother should be forced to travel an hour or more to deliver her baby. No community should lose hundreds of jobs because Trump and the Republicans doled out massive tax cuts to billionaires like Ramaswamy.
Stand with Ohio’s patients, doctors, nurses, emergency responders and rural communities. Sign our petition and tell your state legislators to protect Medicaid funding and keep Ohio’s rural hospitals open.