“Tucson Doctors & Healthcare Execs Share Troubling Prognosis with Dem Candidate Mendoza” [Tucson Sentinel]

Last week, Democratic candidate JoAnna Mendoza convened health care experts from across Southern Arizona to discuss the impacts of Ciscomani’s decision to gut Medicaid, cancel Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits that help Arizonans afford insurance, and failure to get Arizona its fair share from a new rural health program.

REMINDER: Ciscomani repeatedly promised to protect Medicaid, the ACA tax credits, and rural health care – then cast the deciding vote against all three.

Because of Ciscomani, Southern Arizona hospitals are on track to lose $110 MILLION a year due to Medicaid cuts, 70,000 Arizonans have already dropped ACA coverage following the lapse in subsidies, and Arizona received the sixth lowest amount from the Rural Health Transformation Fund, despite Ciscomani saying he would be a “force at the table” to get Arizona its fair share.

DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Juan Ciscomani sold out Arizonans’ health care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Southern Arizonans are fed up with Ciscomani’s broken promises, and that’s why they’ll send JoAnna Mendoza to Congress this November.”

Read the coverage for yourself… 

Tucson Sentinel: Tucson doctors & healthcare execs share troubling prognosis with Dem candidate Mendoza

• Congressional candidate Joanna Mendoza gathered together nine local experts on health care for an hour-long roundtable discussion of some of the biggest challenges facing hospitals and clinics in both urban and rural Arizona.
• Mendoza, who is seeking to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani in the Nov. 3 midterm election, has said that healthcare cuts in the budget passed by Republicans last year – aka the One Big Beautiful Bill – are going to harm Southern Arizona healthcare programs, hospitals and clinics.
• Julia Strange, Tucson Medical Center’s vice president of external affairs, said hospitals are bracing a financial crunch when the federal government reduces payments to hospitals for treating uninsured patients while also forcing low-income people off Medicaid, “which leads to bad debt and charity care hospitals.”
• “No matter what your insurance is, you’re going to be affected by this bill,” said Strange, who warned that patients would overwhelm emergency rooms if they couldn’t find care elsewhere.
• A study by Third Way estimated that 10 hospitals in and around Congressional District 6 could close as a result of the GOP budget signed into law by President Donald Trump because it cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and other healthcare programs.
• Daniel Derkson, director of the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health, said he was concerned about the “incredibly scary” provisions in the GOP budget plan that are “basically implementing things that make it harder for people to stay enrolled in Medicaid.”
• “That’s a huge concern,” Derkson said. “I don’t care if you practice in a rural area or urban area, hospital or clinic, no one can absorb a loss of 10 to 15 percent of those who have a payment source from their thing and still operate the types of services we need, like maternal healthcare.”
• Cisccomani’s office did not respond to the Sentinel’s questions regarding concerns about hospital closures and overcrowding.
• Mendoza held the roundtable discussion on Tuesday in a public meeting room of the Murphy-Wilmot Library, inviting members of the press to attend. Ciscomani held a closed-door meeting with area healthcare executives and controversial Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the beginning of April, putting out a press release after the event.
• A shortage of healthcare workers in Southern Arizona was mentioned by several participants at Tuesday’s roundtable.
• Sue Heck, a retired nurse practitioner, said the Trump administration had moved to reduce the loan amounts available for people studying to become nurses.
• Mendoza herself recalled struggling to find a pediatrician when she retired from the Marines and moved back to Pinal County in 2016.
• “It was really stressful, not only newly out of the military after 20 years, but now being a brand-new mom and trying to find health care for my son,” she said. “This is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart personally, not only because of my personal experience, but also just seeing the sticking points, the challenges that a lot of folks face in obtaining access to health care.”
• At the close of the discussion, Heck said she was concerned about how HHS Secretary Kennedy is changing vaccine protocols, especially for children. 
• Mendoza said she agreed with concerns about Kennedy’s leadership, given how he was upending decades of vaccine protocol and curtailing research projects, such as ending support for mRNA vaccines that allowed the United States to swiftly develop and test COVID-19 vaccines within a year of the 2020 outbreak. 
• Ciscomani’s office did not respond to questions regarding cuts in federal funding for healthcare programs or Kennedy’s changes in vaccine protocols and research efforts.