Rural communities brace for Medicaid cuts in Republicans' big bill

Health care providers, physicians, hospital associations and even some GOP lawmakers are sounding the alarm on the impact of the legislation.
HERMANN, Mo. — Like many Americans, Cierra Matthews doesn’t have time to pay close attention to the flood of policy changes and announcements coming out of Washington, D.C. So when the single mom of two boys heard that her Medicaid benefits could be affected because Republicans are proposing changes to the social safety net program, she was shocked.
Members of Congress, Matthews said, are “covered no matter what, so they don’t have to worry about it. So how is that fair to just take it away from somebody that does have to worry about it because of finances or because of a job?”
“I don’t think it’s fair that they don’t care enough to think about that, and that they get to live in that happy little bubble of theirs,” she said in an interview on Friday.
Matthews lives in a rural community 90 minutes west of St. Louis, where she works in the public school system and falls below the poverty line. She is one of 72 million people in the U.S. who rely on Medicaid for her health care, and before Missouri voted to expand Medicaid access in 2020, she was uninsured.
She said Medicaid saved her life: She received a mental health diagnosis and is on medication that her sons said transformed their mom into a different person.
Rating: 5