Nursing Facilities Closing Due to Republican Medicaid Cuts

Senior Housing News reported on the recent closings of needed nursing homes. As many Americans already struggle to afford long-term care services, they should brace for more impact: the One Big Beautiful Bill will cut nearly $1 trillion from Americans’ Medicaid funds over the next ten years.

Because the federal government funds Medicaid along with individual states, this national bill is expected to have a tremendous impact on the Medicaid funds Americans use every day. In fact, up to 12 million people are at risk of losing their health insurance by 2034.

Anyone who’s dealt with Medicaid knows how complicated and stingy the process can be, yet it’s about to get much worse as states have to decide which programs to cut to account for this sudden lack of federal funding. North Carolina has already decided to significantly reduce pay for providers who treat Medicaid patients. To clarify, this means that if a health care provider focuses on treating patients who pay with Medicaid, they will receive a minimum 3% cut in their pay check. This will cause blatant discrimination to take place, as providers will deliberately prioritize the care of wealthy patients far ahead of patients from lesser means—a serious case of classism. However, it’s tough to blame the state of North Carolina when they expect to lose $23 billion in funding over the next decade.

Worse, Idaho followed suit with North Carolina by making a minimum 4% pay cut to these same providers. Ultimately, if nursing homes are to continue providing care and remain open, either their CEOs must take a significant profit cut, or fewer low and middle-income patients will receive care.

In fact, some long-term care facilities that intended to accept Medicaid waivers are now unsure if it’s worth opening their doors. Longevity Senior Living originally intended to open under a sub-brand that would mainly focus on accepting patients with Medicaid waivers. Now the CEO, Carl Hirschman, says they’re definitely “less aggressive on the opportunity.”

The new bill has also made it so Longevity Living and other long-term care facilities are struggling to find the funds to open additional needed facilities, saying they no longer know where the funding would come from. This is all while other health care providers compete in the background to win funding from the state to afford to offer basic services.

Meanwhile, nursing homes that are already open are trying to prepare to not receive Medicaid reimbursement funds from the government. For example, Ohio Living has reduced over half of its capacity for skilled nursing in anticipation of the cuts. However, Ohio Living recommends that facilities advocate for themselves and pursue creative solutions. Their facility has created a provider-owned Medicare Advantage plan so it may offer its own insurance for its residents.

As Brian Perry, a 20-year studier of policy, said, “They’re going to drive trucks through us as they get to their policy end goals, because we’ve seen it for years and years and years, and it’s going to continue,” and “If we aren’t linking arms with everybody, from hospital to home health, and the American senior is going to be stuck in the middle, we’ll continue to see these things.”

As we continue to see the bill’s impact and additional cuts, it will be interesting to see if a country as advanced as the United States will change its course and aid the average American in accessing medical services, or if the U.S. will become a country that only allows health care access to the rich.