News · Press Release

“It’s Going to Be a Crisis:” At Least Five Arizona Hospitals Could Close Because of David Schweikert, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomani

“Changes to the Medicaid system will be felt by eligible Medicaid recipients and even local residents using private insurance”
Arizona’s rural hospitals are bracing for David Schweikert, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomani’s devastating cuts to federal health care spending – the harms of which will be felt by “all patients,” the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association has warned.

While the Big, Ugly Bill includes a temporary, insufficiently-funded “rural provider fund,” experts agree there is “no reason to believe this will stem the tide of hospital closures,” given the permanent, much deeper Medicaid cuts Schweikert, Crane, and Ciscomani voted for.

Five Arizona hospitals – including three in Crane’s district – are at risk of closing.

DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Arizona hospitals have been sounding the alarm for months that they’d be at real risk of closing if David Schweikert, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomani voted to defund health care – and these so-called ‘representatives’ voted to gut Medicaid anyway. Schweikert, Crane, and Ciscomani chose to fund tax breaks for billionaires over health care for Arizonans. They’ll pay the price for it at the ballot box next November.”

In case you missed it…
  • Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress last month, cuts around $1 trillion in federal health care spending between 2026 and 2034 and will result in an estimated 12 million Americans to lose health coverage.
  • Those cuts will have a disproportionate impact on rural communities, which typically have a higher number of low-income residents who rely on Medicaid for health care coverage.
  • In Arizona, five rural hospitals are considered at-risk: Page Hospital; Little Colorado Medical Center in Winslow; Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee; Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales; and Cobre Valley Regional Regional Medical Center in Globe.
  • Health officials in rural Arizona say the impact of changes to the Medicaid system will be felt by eligible Medicaid recipients and even local residents using private insurance.
  • In addition to serving a larger uninsured population, those hospitals will also contend with the end of provider taxes, a mechanism states, including Arizona used, to boost the amount of federal Medicaid money they receive.
  • Spears said the $50 billion in one-time funding for rural hospitals “will not begin to offset the extensive cuts” and it is still unclear how that money will be distributed.
  • Rural hospitals will likely now have to cut services available to all patients to make up for funding shortfalls, health care executives said during a Medicaid roundtable hosted by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs earlier this year.
  • Neal Jensen, CEO of the Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center, said his hospital was able to hire speciality doctors, like a urologist, using Medicaid funds and that federal cuts will make it more difficult to recruit doctors to rural Arizona.
  • Jensen said his facility is the only hospital within an hour and half of its location that delivers babies. Funding cuts could result in the end of those types of speciality services, meaning those patients will end up in the emergency room or travelling to larger metro areas for care, he said.

###

Please make sure that the form field below is filled out correctly before submitting.