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GOP Congressman Who Warned of Hospitals Closing Before Voting for Trump Bill Says “I Still Have Concerns”

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Rep. David Valadao

Prior to the U.S. Senate narrowly passing President Donald Trump‘s budget reconciliation bill on Tuesday (51-50) and sending it to the House of Representatives, 16 House Republicans led by Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) opposed the Senate version of the bill because of its Medicaid cuts, which were deeper than those in an earlier bill.

The legislation that Trump signed on Friday enacts roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.

In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Valadao and his 15 Republican colleagues — before all of them voted in favor of the bill on Thursday — warned that the bill would impose “penalties” for states with larger programs, and “additional burdens on hospitals already stretched thin.”

After voting for the bill, Valadao said in a written statement: “I’ve been assured by the administration that it will be structured in a way that benefits our providers and keeps our hospitals and communities running.”

He added: “To be clear, I still have concerns with the implementation of the provider tax and state directed payment provisions of H.R. 1, but I’ve worked and will continue to engage with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to identify specific risks to Valley hospitals and mitigate them.” “

The publication Becker’s Hospital Review (BHR) reported this week that “Nearly 800 rural U.S. hospitals are at risk of closure due to financial problems, with about 40% of those hospitals at immediate risk of closure.”

The report also reveals that in the state of California “22 hospitals are at risk of closing (38%), with 4 at immediate risk of closing in next 2-3 years (7%).”

According to the data provided by BHR, the states with the most rural hospitals at immediate risk of closure in the next 2-3 years are:

Kansas: 29 hospitals are at immediate risk of closing (29%);
Alabama: 23 hospitals are at immediate risk of closing (45%);
Oklahoma, 23 hospitals are at immediate risk of closing (29%);
Texas: 22 hospitals are at immediate risk of closing (14%).

[Note: The founder and publisher of Becker’s Hospital Review is Scott Becker, a partner at the Virginia law firm McGuireWoods, which represented Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in the Georgia election racketeering prosecution and was paid almost $900,000 in legal fees from Trump’s Save America PAC in 2022.

Also during the first Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence hired McGuireWoods’ then-chairman Richard Cullen (who is currently counselor to Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin) as outside legal counsel to handle inquiries related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.]

Note: After Rep. Valadao voted for Trump’s bill, reports started to surface about California state assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains, a physician who specializes in family medicine and addiction, who is reportedly considering a run (as a Democrat) against Valadao in the upcoming election.

As seen above and below, Dr. Bains opposes the Trump’s reconciliation bill that Valadao voted for, as does the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said “threatens children’s health – making sweeping cuts to programs children and families rely on.”

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