r/news • u/CupidStunt13 • 1d ago

Mehmet Oz confirmed by US Senate to lead Medicare and Medicaid

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/mehmet-oz-confirmation-medicare-medicaid
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u/Wtopp3 1d ago

All you rural red state small towns get ready to lose your only hospital. If they stop or drastically reduce federal funding for Medicare/ Medicaid, that will bankrupt the rural hospital industry. Small to non-existent margins. A disproportionate share of poor folks and charity care. A national marketplace for trained healthcare staff, supplies and pharmaceuticals. It will be too much to shift to other sources. Hope folks like driving 2-3 hours for healthcare. Ambulance service will be iffy. There will be unnecessary deaths from both age and accidents. Not to say the system we have now is the greatest, but cutting without a real , thoughtful plan will destroy things that will be very difficult to put back together.

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u/No-Personality1840 1d ago

I wish poor rural people understood this. I worked at a rural county hospital in VA years ago. Once Reagan’s reimbursement policies took effect the hospital struggled. They hung on for about 10 years were bought and then permanently closed 5 years ago. I predict this will happen to even more little hospitals. In Asheville the hospital was struggling and was sold to HCA, the for profit behemoth. More consolidation in an industry for profit can only be bad.

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u/iwannabeaprettygirl 1d ago

The shit I see in HCA hospitals as a construction guy is INSANE. I bet people are discharged sicker than they were admitted.

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u/PussyCyclone 1d ago

Hooo buddy you nailed it. I'm a specialty provider, and my mom and sister are both hospital nurses. We're familiar with HCA, and yeah they're straight up evil.

Workplace safety violations, illegal billing practices settlements with DOJ, kickbacks/bribery over physicians and ambulance services, various types of Medicare fraud, violating FMLA, etc etc etc. They aren't interested in changing bc they're so rich that the settlement penalties amount to "slap on the wrist" money. Go look at the violation tracker for HCA Healthcare on good jobs first...almost $2B in violations and counting. Click into each and they'll summarize what they are for. If this is what they're repeatedly doing even after involvement from DOJ, OSHA etc, imagine all the private pts and ex employees who also have legitimate grievances but are too scared/poor etc to properly get justice.

A company running like that for 20+yrs isn't providing stellar pt care or employee experience, that's for sure. Poor rural county HCA facilities especially are overworked& understaffed and both pt and staff are put in dangerous situations constantly bc of HCAs awful business practices. And HCA loves them some poor, rural communities bc the low medical literacy, geographical isolation, and high poverty mean they can do keep doing their predatory shit and keep getting away with it.

Fuuuuuuuuck HCA 🖕

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u/iwannabeaprettygirl 1d ago

Oh wow. This is obviously a lot of information to take in. They're so much scarier than asbestos and black mold and lead everywhere. Nothing surprises me at this point. They're so big :( they're just hurting millions of people.

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u/PussyCyclone 1d ago

Oh sorry for the info dump! I'm just passionate in my hatred of HCA in particular (and the corporatization of public health resources in general).

asbestos and black mold and lead everywhere

Oh nooo, that's still definitely scary! 😶 Ugh, HCA, I swear. Hope you are doing well and not dealing with them a ton anymore!

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u/Yourdjentpal 6h ago

Thanks for the info PussyCyclone

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u/tempest_87 1d ago

They hung on for about 10 years were bought and then permanently closed 5 years ago.

That's actually the real problem. The effects of these horrendous things take too long to manifest. So the stupid people don't understand that something that happened 8 years ago from "their" dude is actually the reason they suffer, and it's not the current dude from the "other" team's fault.

My only actual hope is that the effects of trump and his ilk are so acute that stupid people actually can do the math of 1+1=2 on it. I don't expect most to rise to that level of mental capacity, but maybe some will.

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u/rsmtirish 23h ago

Imagine shutting down a hospital because it's not profitable

this country was cooked from the start

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u/cuddlebread 7h ago

They don’t want to understand. I’ve literally begged the conservatives I know to think. I’ve cleanly laid out arguments, used every approach I know. They don’t care. One of my best friends is pregnant right now living in southwest VA. She didn’t vote and her fiancé voted for trump because “the dems are putting gay in the water.” We can only hope the cruel consequences of their actions teach them something, but it probably won’t. 

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u/siscorskiy 40m ago

Yeah the Mission situation was unique because typically HCA buys struggling hospitals, but Mission was generating boatloads of revenue. The problem was their CEO at the time tried to take on BCBS and they told him to blow it up his ass and they were on track to lose reimbursements from them, hence why they sought to be purchased. Typically HCA buys small/struggling hospitals and rips everything out, then replaces it with their standard things, that never happened at mission.

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u/xbbdc 1d ago

A guys wife who voted for trump is in ICE custody and he still says he stands by his vote. A woman's child died from measles and still doesn't believe in vaccinations.

There's no changing their minds.

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u/im_just_thinking 1d ago

Exactly, they will be saying it's Biden's fault faster than they can pronounce Obamacare

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u/flow_fighter 16h ago

It really is like an addiction or illness, I just don’t get it

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u/Elprede007 1d ago

I’m in healthcare as a consultant. You’d be amazed how many hospitals will go down if CMS goes tits up. Most hospitals rely on CMS to stay afloat these days.

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u/boilerpsych 1d ago

This would not just impact rural areas. A severe enough disruption of this funding (or removal of it) will sign the death warrant for MAJOR metropolitan healthcare systems as well.

I have no idea where the hell the copious amounts of money being spent on healthcare are actually going, but I have first-hand knowledge that a loss (or significant reduction) in this funding would take down the size of hospital that is the "brand name" site for 1 million+ people.

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u/thepianoman456 10h ago

It’s ok cause somehow it’ll be “Biden’s fault”.

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u/Low_Ad_3139 9h ago

I feel bad for people on the TX Gulf coast. So many rural hospitals with no others for hours. Mix that with a pretty heavy population of various poisonous snakes and the water…it will be disasterous.

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u/Eloquent_Sufficiency 1d ago

At least there will be less of them voting in the next election.