National Journal

By: Erin Durkin

The Trump administration’s push to add work requirements to Medicaid could pile onto the funding woes of struggling rural hospitals, possibly even adding to the numbers that end up closing their doors.

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“Rural communities have more at stake in these debates because not only do they tend to have a higher proportion of their populations that may be on Medicaid, but the whole community is impacted if a hospital closes because they all rely on that hospital,” said Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “It’s not to say that doing a work requirement is going to lead to a hospital closure directly, but it’s certainly going to put pressure on struggling rural hospitals to the extent that they see more uncompensated care because people become uninsured.”

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