'Tremendous pressure': GOP senator predicts party will fold over rural hospital closures

President Donald Trump's signature domestic policy law's cuts to Medicaid is already wreaking havoc on rural hospitals — particularly in some of the reddest states. One Senate Republican is already fearing the backlash from voters could require an intervention.

According to a Monday report in Politico, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) predicted that Republicans may soon have to go back to the drawing board to rework H.R. 1 ("The One Big Beautiful Bill Act") in order to preserve hundreds of rural hospitals across the country.

"As the implications of the bill become better known, I think there’s going to be tremendous pressure to change the law," Collins told the World Medical Innovation Forum (which was attended by numerous healthcare executives) in Boston, Massachusetts.

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"But we’re going to need the evidence, the stories, the research that didn’t occur," she continued. "... People who didn’t get the care in time because they were diagnosed only when they show up at your emergency room, rather than by a primary care physician."

Trump's massive tax and spending law could close as many as 338 rural hospitals that overwhelmingly rely on Medicaid patients to stay open, according to research from the University of North Carolina's Sheps Center for Health Services Research. The Sheps Center found that in Maine, the Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle and the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth are at risk of closing.

Collins — who is both the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions – is presumed to be running for a sixth term in the U.S. Senate. And because Maine has a Democratic governor and voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, Collins could be in for a particularly tough fight with several Democratic challengers already having declared their campaigns.

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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