| Chuck Edwards is at it again. After casting one of the deciding votes to pass the single largest cut to Medicaid in history, Edwards is desperately trying to cover his tracks by touting Republicans’ woefully underfunded “Rural Health Transformation Fund” – which does virtually nothing to offset the health care cuts he voted for.
Experts are now calling Edwards out for trying to have it both ways, warning that “changes to Medicaid eligibility will mean $49.9 billion in losses to NC Medicaid over the next 10 years.”
And thanks to Edwards’ vote, five rural hospitals across North Carolina are now at risk of shuttering their doors – including the Blue Ridge Regional Hospital in Edwards’ own district.
Read the full piece below:
Southeast Politics: Medicaid experts say grant touted by Chuck Edwards will do little to offset $50B in losses for NC hospitals
- As the year kicked off, U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards touted a grant for rural hospitals in North Carolina. But experts say that small piece of funding represents a fraction of the hit in Medicaid funding suffered by North Carolina hospitals after $50 billion in spending cuts in President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
- That dulls much of the excitement for $231 million from the Rural Health Transformation Program. That was a fund also set up in the Big Beautiful Bill to make up for changes in Medicaid.
- Edwards last month said that funding would be vital to North Carolina’s rural counties. “The program has worked exactly like we intended for it to work. We’ve got a lot of work yet to do to improve our healthcare system in America,” Edwards told WLOS.
- But NC Medicaid leaders say the changes in the tax package, one Edwards supported in the House, don’t cover losses. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services in a presentation to state lawmakers said changes to Medicaid eligibility will mean $49.9 billion in losses to NC Medicaid over the next 10 years.
- Meanwhile, the $231 million over the next five years will provide just over $1 billion over the next five years.
- Mountain Area Health Education Center CEO William Hathaway told Asheville’s ABC affiliate that the grant announced by Edwards does little to offset the damage coming from adjustments to Medicaid. And those changes will hit rural institutions especially hard.
- “They’re critically dependent on Medicaid and federal dollars to stay afloat. So when you cut those services for the hospitals specifically, there’s great risk to their financial viability,” Hathaway said.
- That has Democrats in Washington hammering Edwards for trying to take credit for hospital funding that barely dents the losses delivered in the same piece of authorizing legislation.
- “Chuck Edwards wants credit for doing the bare minimum when he’s the one to blame for this rural health care crisis in the first place,” said Madison Andrus, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
- “Edwards didn’t save the day – he’s trying to cover his tracks. If he wants to kiss the ring of Republican extremists who want to decimate rural health care the least he can do is not lie about it.” […]
- But the resulting $1 trillion cut in Medicaid revenues means fallout for rural institutions that heavily rely on the program. The Charlotte Observer identified five North Carolina Hospitals at risk of shutting down because of the cuts. That includes Blue Ridge Regional Hospital in Spruce Pine.
- And a DCCC analysis predicts 39,000 constituents in Edwards’ district could be kicked off their health insurance because of Big Beautiful Bill changes.
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