As someone who has spent decades in hospitals – first as a nurse and hospital administrator and later as a Board member – I’ve seen firsthand how fragile life can be when people don’t have access to healthcare. That’s why I’m deeply alarmed by current efforts in Congress to cut Medicaid. If they succeed, it won’t be some far-off problem. It will hit us here at home, hard.
In small towns like Cuero, Medicaid isn’t some abstract line item. It’s what keeps our hospitals open, what helps seniors fill prescriptions, and how working parents cover doctor visits when they’re already stretching every dollar to keep food on the table.
Cutting Medicaid would mean rural hospitals, including the ones we depend on, could be forced to shut their doors. That’s not a guess: it’s a pattern we’ve seen in Texas and across the country whenever Medicaid support dries up. Since 2010, nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed and an additional 700 are at risk. And once a hospital closes, it rarely reopens. The next time someone suffers a heart attack or a serious accident, help may be 30 or 40 miles away—if they can get there in time.
