As Trump loyalists charge ahead with their budget Reconciliation Bill, hospital professionals shared what’s at stake regarding cuts to public healthcare options.

Hospital executives and directors are concerned about how the Republican US Senate-passed spending bill threatens hospital closures and preventive care for many families who are already working but rely on Medicaid for health insurance. 

Due to added red tape and the expiration of extra Obamacare subsidies, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the House version of the “big beautiful bill” could cost 17 million Americans their health coverage by 2034. The proposal, which includes most of President Donald Trump’s policy goals, would implement historic cuts to Medicaid. This public insurance program covers over 71 million low-income people and individuals with disabilities nationwide. 

“There are so many Nevada families with children that have rare diseases and their parents are working,” said US Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) during a press call this morning. “And they still need to have Medicaid to access the health care they need for their children.”

As of March, Nevada has 719,195 people on Medicaid, which has led hospital professionals, including Jennifer Wakem, Chief Financial Officer of University Medical Center, Pat Kelly, President of the Nevada Hospital Association, Dr. Ketan Patel, UMC Emergency Department Medical Director, and Beatrice Nortey, a pediatric registered nurse, to speak out.

Norty, who also lives with sickle cell disease, said she wouldn’t survive without Medicaid, which covers portions of her healthcare, such as specialists, blood transfusions, emergency treatment, medication, and lab work.  

“Without it, I wouldn’t be able to stay healthy enough to work or continue serving as a nurse in the state that we urgently need more health care workers,” she said.

If the bill passes the House and reaches Trump’s desk for his signature, Masto said that would mean about 70,000 Nevadans would be kicked off Medicaid, and about 40,000 would lose their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. In addition to individual impacts, Cortez Masto noted that the cuts will also harm the broader community, as hospitals struggle to provide services and treatment with reduced funding. This change would devastate the already-strained hospital infrastructure. 

Nevada consistently ranks near the bottom nationwide in health care quality and the number of physicians per capita. 

When questions arose about the argument regarding Medicaid cuts as a way to address waste, fraud, and abuse, Cortez Masto pointed to “tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans” as the true motivator.

“What the policy of this administration, the Republicans, is — we’re going to make it harder, even if you’re working, for you to be eligible to access these Medicaid dollars,” she said. “It’s just mean and cruel.”

Threats to hospitals

UMC is the single public hospital in the state, located in central Las Vegas. It’s where medical staff offer “life-saving treatment” to residents throughout the Las Vegas Valley, serving as the anchor hospital in the Las Vegas Medical District and being the state’s only high-level trauma center, verified burn center, and transplant center.

Medicaid supports almost half of the patients at UMC, Wakem said, representing 42% of inpatient clients and 48% of emergency room visits. Wakem, the leader of finance at UMC, said that if those people lost coverage, it would not only put the hospital in a tight spot financially but also drive up the instances of illness.

“People lose Medicaid coverage and then become self-pay [clients], and they will not seek care on time or in the right setting, and their conditions will just progressively get worse,” she said. “They’ll end up at the emergency room at UMC.”

Patel, who helms the UMC adult emergency center, said he’s worried that the cuts will also lead to an increase in people avoiding emergency care. Cutting Medicaid funding will hurt the most vulnerable populations, he said, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

“I anticipate I will meet patients … who waited too long to come and seek care because they don’t have any other access of care,” he said. “We serve that safety net when they present near an end stage of disease, when we could have intervened earlier and prevented those consequences.”

Wakem notes that efforts to combat potential cuts include contacting federal representatives and voicing opposition to the bill, which awaits a vote in the House. Should the bill pass, Waken said UMC would face the need to cut down on services and seek additional subsidies from the Clark County Commission.