| A new report conducted by the Virginia Joint Commission on Health Care is sounding the alarm over Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans, and John McGuire’s cruel vote to gut Medicaid.
The report warns that over a dozen rural hospitals across Virginia are at risk of closing due to Wittman, Kiggans, and McGuire’s votes. Hospitals specifically at risk according to the report include…
IN VA-01:
- VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital
- Bon Secours Rappahannock General Hospital
IN VA-02:
- Bon Secours Southampton Memorial Hospital
IN VA-05:
- Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital
- VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital
This is just the latest report to warn that Virginia hospitals are at risk of shutting their doors because of Wittman, Kiggans, and McGuire.
Additionally, Wittman, Kiggans, and McGuire’s vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill “has already been cited as the reason a health system closed three clinics in rural Virginia last year.”
- A report published last week by the state’s Joint Commission on Health Care has raised new concerns about healthcare access in rural Virginia.
- Eight rural hospitals are “at risk of closure” and five others are at “immediate risk of closure,” according to an analysis of each hospital’s financials, including operating margins and financial reserves.
- A separate analysis of financial distress included in the state’s report found that four rural hospitals are in the “highest risk of distress” and eight others are in the “mid-highest risk of distress.”
- Since 2005, 108 rural hospitals have closed nationwide and 139 stopped offering inpatient services, according to the state report.
- Rural hospitals struggle with lower numbers of patients, offer fewer services that could bring in more money, and have less negotiating power to get better reimbursement rates, the report said. Meanwhile, labor costs have gone up and inflation has driven up the prices of medical supplies.
- One of the hospitals identified as “at risk of closure” was LewisGale Hospital Pulaski in Pulaski and is part of the HCA Virginia Health System.
- The [Big Beautiful Bill] has already been cited as the reason a health system closed three clinics in rural Virginia last year.
- State Del. Amy Laufer (D-Crozet) said in a statement to Dogwood that “immense cuts and administrative changes in federal funding” to Medicaid and Medicare have “intensified the challenges for rural healthcare and put patients in a precarious position.
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