ICYMI: Rural Minnesota economies under threat as feds cut safety net programs.
The problem: Rural hospitals are economic drivers for their communities. As federal cuts put hospitals in financial turmoil, their local economies are threatened, too.
The Star Tribune looked at this problem in Wadena, MN, where Astera Health is grappling with how to deal with Medicaid cuts. From the article:
Now, Astera officials are scrambling to recalculate already razor-thin margins so the only hospital for miles around — and the biggest employer in town — can stay open. Like states across the country, the reliance on federal dollars is most pronounced in Minnesota’s rural communities, which tend to be older and poorer than metro areas.
The big picture:
Minnesota will lose an estimated 21,400 jobs by 2029 as a result of cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and the 2010 Affordable Care Act under the budget reconciliation package, according to soon-to-be-released estimates from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
About half the job losses will be in health care and the rest in other sectors.
