The Kentucky Hospital Association says federal cuts to Medicaid could cause rural hospitals to cut some services to stay afloat.
The association last May endorsed a version of the Big, Beautiful Bill that kept Medicaid payments to Kentucky hospitals intact.
The version passed into law includes a new provision that says Medicaid can’t pay hospitals above what Medicare pays to states. The association says that would cut $2.4 billion dollars in hospital funding, starting in 2028 and through the decade after. Kentucky already has the 40th lowest Medicare rates in the nation.
Association CEO Nancy Galvagni says hospitals who have relied on Medicaid funds will need to look for ways to stay afloat.
“They’re going to start to plan now for what they need to do to survive,” Galvagni said. “And they're going to be looking at the services that they offer and whether they can afford to continue to offer all the services that they offer today. And they're going to start looking at what to cut.”
Galvagni says the cuts could have wide reaching impacts.
“If a hospital, for example, stops having a certain service available — behavioral health, let's say, that affects everybody in the community, not just Medicaid patients. It affects everyone that would need to access that service at the hospital,” she said.
A study from the University of North Carolina’s Sheps Center says 35 Kentucky hospitals would be at risk of closing because of the cuts. That’s the most of any state in the country.
