Protect Our Care’s Hospital Crisis Watch Map Now Shows 500 Health Care Providers at Risk of Closing Due to the GOP Health Care Crisis
Washington, D.C. — Protect Our Care’s Hospital Crisis Watch tracks the harm Donald Trump and Republicans are inflicting on American health care in real time – community by community, hospital by hospital. This week, the map reached a grim milestone of 500 health care providers closing or at risk of closing because the GOP chose to put health care on the chopping block to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.
The hospital, nursing home, and clinic closures Protect Our Care tracks are more than just pins on a map. They represent the indescribable pain of the everyday people and communities Republicans are hanging out to dry in their relentless attack on working people. Murphy and his American Mobilization Project are working with Protect Our Care to track health care closures due to passage of Republicans’ bill.
“Republicans are creating a health care cataclysm in this country. After kicking 15 million Americans off Medicaid, they’re now pushing a budget that allows insurers to raise premiums by as much as 100% on families across the country,” said Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). “Republicans have shown again and again their priority is giving huge tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy even if it means working families can’t afford to see a doctor and the elderly get kicked out of their nursing homes. Democrats will continue fighting for a budget that stops these premium increases from going into effect, reverses the Medicaid cuts that are forcing 500 health care providers to close, and stops Trump’s lawlessness.”
“When Republicans cut $1 trillion from Medicaid to fund tax breaks for their wealthy friends and shut down the government to put health insurance out of reach for millions of working people, they showed where their priorities lie,” said Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse. “The GOP is in charge of Congress and the White House. It’s up to them to right this wrong and start working for the American people – not just the rich and powerful.”
When the GOP health care crisis shuts down a rural emergency room or urgent care clinic, it means a father experiencing a stroke will wait 11 to 16 minutes longer for an ambulance – a delay that could determine whether or not he gets to watch his children grow up. When the GOP health care crisis closes a community’s only maternity ward, it forces an expectant single mother to make a harrowing hours-long journey to access care after she goes into labor, putting her life and the life of her unborn child at risk. When the GOP health care crisis shutters a nursing home, it rips away life-saving care from an elderly couple trying to live long enough to witness the birth of their first grandson. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress own every life lost because of their failure to put working people before billionaires.