The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
Earlier this year Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) announced it was closing 2 hospitals in the 3rd Congressional District (CD): “This difficult decision comes after prolonged operational and financial stress related to lingering impacts of the pandemic, inflation, workforce constraints, local market challenges and other industry-wide trends.” Wisconsinites lost access to health care and hospital employees lost their jobs.
The well-respected Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR) said: “The primary reason hundreds of rural hospitals are at risk of closing is that private insurance plans are paying them less than what it costs to deliver services to patients. … Private insurance companies and public insurance programs (Medicaid and Medicare) need to make significant changes in both the amounts and methods they use to pay for rural hospital services in order to prevent more rural hospitals from closing in the future.” Moreover, CHQPR reported 7 more Wisconsin rural hospitals were “at risk of closing.”
Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin has long been ringing the alarm. Baldwin works with a bipartisan group of senators to support rural hospitals. She has opposed cuts in Medicare funding for rural hospitals, fought for more federal funding and advance notification and “mitigation plan” before a rural hospital is closed. Additionally, Baldwin supports Medicaid expansion in Wisconsin. Finally, she has fought to expand Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits and extend eligibility as well as cutting the costs of prescription drugs. Baldwin also understands that increasing private insurance reimbursement for rural hospitals is part of the solution.
However, many Republicans, including vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, prefer un-American scapegoating over solving problems. Vance, at a recent rally in Eau Claire, told a whopper about the closure of hospitals in the 3rd CD: “Now you might not think that rural health care is an immigration issue. I guarantee it is an immigration issue, because we’re bankrupting, bankrupting a lot of hospitals by forcing these hospitals (to) provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country … .” He simply ignored the HSHS press release on the 3rd CD hospital closures and the definitive CHQPR explanation for rural hospital closures.
Republicans are not problem solvers regarding health care. Wisconsin GOP state legislators have made Wisconsin 1 of only 10 states that refuse to expand Medicaid. Wisconsin GOP 3rd CD Representative Derrick Van Orden wants “Obamacare” (derisive name for ACA) to be “fully repealed.” Moreover, Trump has long called for repealing the ACA, but has never proposed a replacement. And, Project 2025 wants to cap Medicaid: “For example, in Wisconsin 41 percent of enrollees could lose their coverage” (NYT). Why does former Wisconsin GOP Governor Tommy Thompson support this cruelty?
In Wisconsin, only Democratic candidates want to protect health care accessibility, affordability and coverage. As the ACA has been implemented, it has become very popular and covers about 45 million Americans, including well over 266,327 Wisconsinites. Moreover, no one can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions. Healthcare is on the line. Vote health care security, not fear.
–Kaplan wrote a guest column from Washington, D.C., for the Wisconsin State Journal from 1995 – 2009.
