Minnesota’s rural hospitals may be hard hit by ‘big beautiful bill’

WASHINGTON The U S Senate circulated its version of the big beautiful bill that would help implement President Donald Trump s agenda and the state s hospitals especially those in rural areas could be among the biggest losers in the ordinance Last month U S House Republicans approved a massive package of tax and spending cuts projected to effect in million fewer Medicaid enrollees and is expected to cost Minnesota about million a year in lost Medicaid revenue The cuts in the House bill would come from the imposition of new work requirements that are expected to reduce enrollment The Senate s version of the budget bill would also impose work requirements but slice even deeper by capping the amount of provider taxes states charge hospitals and doctors to The House bill had set the cap for the provider tax at By charging providers a tax and reimbursing them for that money through higher payments for their services Minnesota and about other states are able to boost the money they receive from the federal governing body from Medicaid which is a shared state-federal undertaking The proposed cap provoked outcries from groups that represent the nation s hospitals The Senate just made a bad bill worse Chip Kahn CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals reported in a message Rural communities would take the hardest hit with struggling hospitals compelled to face complicated decisions about what services to cut Rural areas disproportionately rely on Medicaid and their hospitals are often the only resort for patients without wellbeing coverage In Minnesota the provider tax is right now set at among the smallest of all states But the state has of late approved a budget that would impose a new Medicaid Directed Payment Scheme on participating hospitals effectively raising the provider tax to on participating facilities to leverage billion from the federal administration to help struggling hospitals Mark Jones executive director of the Minnesota Rural Strength Association disclosed the U S Senate budget bill could upend plans for a new directed payment activity which has to be approved by the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services CMS It s not beneficial to our rural vitality care providers at all Jones disclosed of the Senate measure The Senate s cap on the provider tax would apply to states like Minnesota that had expanded Medicaid to higher-income individuals and families under the Affordable Care Act The cap would require states to gradually reduce their taxes down to meet the threshold by so Jones disclosed he hoped Minnesota s plans to increase the tax could be grandfathered and implemented until the deadline The Minnesota Hospital Association in a announcement noted We are closely monitoring developments in Washington The Minnesota Department of Revenue could not be reached for comment A sweet deal Among the winners in the Senate budget bill are Minnesota s farmers especially those who raise sugar beets who would benefit from larger federal payouts Both the House and Senate versions of the rule include a provision that has been at the top of beet sugar and sugar cane farmers wish list the largest loan rate increase in decades The American Sugar Alliance which represents the nation s beet sugar and cane sugar farmers hailed the provision Since the expiration of the Farm Bill two years ago sugar beet and sugarcane farmers have been pressing Congress to update and improve the farm safety net the alliance reported in a message We thank Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman and his colleagues for including in the reconciliation package necessary updates to the Farm Bill sugar provisions which have received strong bipartisan sponsorship in past Farm Bill deliberations The U S Department of Agriculture s sugar initiative is a price sponsorship operation The USDA makes loans to sugar processors based on collateral which is a certain amount of sugar If those processors don t get enough money from the sale of their sugar they forfeit the sugar to the USDA The USDA generally doesn t want sugar forfeitures it wants sugar processors to sell and profit enough to be able to pay back the loans So by increasing the loan rate in this circumstance from cents to cents per pound the USDA is incentivized to try to boost sugar prices high enough to make sure there are no forfeitures One way the USDA boosts prices is through import restrictions But the USDA s attempts to boost sugar prices are opposed by food processors that use sugar including General Mills a company that is now aiming to decrease the use of sugar in its cereals A SALTy concern Meanwhile an unresolved issue in the Senate budget reconciliation bill is what to do about the state and local tax deduction SALT issue The House bill had increased the cap of that s in the present placed on taxpayers who want to deduct state and local tax payments from their federal income taxes to But the Senate does not want to raise the cap The Senate hopes to vote on the bill next week But that bill is required to go back to the House for approval and the SALT cap has emerged as a poison pill A group of House Republicans from blue states with high costs of living and high state and local taxes say they won t vote for the budget bill unless the SALT cap is set at There s several talk of keeping the cap but restricting how numerous higher-income households can benefit The House bill set that limit at households earning less than However there is no deal yet and the SALT deduction has become a main stumbling point in plans to send President Donald Trump a budget bill by July In affair you missed it -Greater Minnesota reporter Brian Arola wrote about the Trump administration s plans to shutter the Digital Equity Act a scheme created to promote the expansion of broadband into underserved areas like rural Minnesota In the wake of the assassination of state Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband we wrote about an increase in political violence across the country Also in a follow-up to the slayings we released on a Congressional plan to shelve the FACE Act a federal law designed specifically to protect abortion providers from violence Alleged killer Lance Boelter had a hit list that included the names of abortion providers and abortion rights activists -We shared an AP story about federal charges in the Hortman deaths that could lead to the death penalty for Boelter He faces state charges too but Minnesota doesn t have the death penalty The AP also talked with U S Sens Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar about the prospects for heightened assurance for lawmakers in the wake of the Minnesota killings which appear to have been politically motivated Your questions and comments A reader took issue with President Donald Trump s message about the assassination of Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shooting of Sen John Hoffman and his spouse Unlike others Trump failed to call the attacks politically motivated and heaped praise on Minnesota a state that he had previously criticized First Trump s history of dishonesty makes one question whether he definitely believes anything he says the reader wrote His report contends to think Minnesota and Minnesotans being great is clearly false What he did not say is more telling very deliberate and self-serving Angry men with guns not a group he is willing to antagonize Please keep your comments and any questions coming I ll try my best to respond Please contact me at aradelat minnpost com The post Minnesota s rural hospitals may be hard hit by big beautiful bill appeared first on MinnPost