“Horse feathers,” he said, dismissing the idea.
Curtis has become an early test case of the politics of Trump’s agenda in rural America, where voters vulnerable to Medicaid cuts in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” law are reluctant to blame the president or congressional Republicans who approved it. Many people in Curtis have directed their frustration at their hospital system instead of their representatives in Washington.
Democrats and health care advocates are pointing to the town — population 806 in the last census — as a first casualty of Republicans’ health care overhaul. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and others have referred to the town on social media as a model of what’s to come for rural hospitals around the country. Close to half of rural hospitals nationwide already lose money, and analysts expect Trump’s tax and spending law to add more strain.
Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 — one day before the bill’s passage — that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,” the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans.
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