Congress is eyeing over $880 billion in Medicaid budget cuts as part of President Trump’s grand budget and tax plan. Apparently, making America great again includes making rural hospitals poor again. The loss of these funds could be devastating for some rural hospitals in Oklahoma, where roughly 1 million Oklahomans rely on Medicaid (SoonerCare).
“For rural hospitals, a loss to Medicaid funding could result in an up to 15% reduction in revenue used to provide hope and healing for our most vulnerable community members, resulting in worse health outcomes, delayed treatments and increased mortality rates,” wrote Jeremy Jones, chief executive officer of Arbuckle Memorial Hospital in Sulphur, in The Oklahoman.
Rural Oklahoma has already taken a beating in recent decades, what with farm consolidation, declining manufacturing and school cuts already turning our countryside into a charmingly rustic poverty simulator. A Medicaid budget cut could further exacerbate the state’s rural decline, making them feel less like the Sooner State and more like the Sooner-or-Later-We’re-Closing-Everything State
This article appears in deadCenter Film Festival 2025.