Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs is one of a number of state financial officers still sounding the alarm about Medicaid funding cuts just approved as part of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
“Nine rural hospitals — in Dixon, Danville, Olney, Harrisburg, Hoopeston, Benton, Hardin County, Metropolis, and Robinson — are in danger of closing,” said Frerichs. “These hospitals are in Republican areas. Republicans are hurting Republicans.”
Frerichs says hospitals that stay open may have to cut staff or services, and all of it threatens to hurt the state’s economy. He says people will have to drive further to get medical care, causing them to avoid preventative treatments. Pregnant mothers, he says, will have to drive farther to give birth.
“If you have people showing up to hospitals, not paying their bills because they don’t have access to health care, they’re going to get sick. They’re going to show up, and it’s going to be unreimbursed, uncompensated costs for hospitals,” said Frerichs. “Those hospitals are going to pass that along to others — those with health insurance, those states that are negotiating group health insurance plans. It has to be paid somehow, or these hospitals are going to go out of business.”
Frerichs said if you think the government is really going to save money, think again. He called the possibility of any sort of fiscal responsibility “laughable.”
“If (Republicans are) really interested in fiscal responsibility, they wouldn’t be adding more than $3.4 trillion to the national debt,” said Frerichs. “This is about cruelty.”