Hospitals and clinics are shutting down due to Trump’s healthcare cuts. Here’s where
Healthcare providers across the country have closed clinics and hospital wards in the four months since Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the landmark tax-and-spending legislation that will lead an estimated 10 million people to lose their health insurance.The law is expected to slash federal funding by hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years, as part of Trump’s campaign pledge to shrink government spending.But it will do so in part by paring back eligibility for Medicaid, the US government’s health insurance program for low-income people; raising the cost of healthcare under the Affordable Care Act; and defunding some family planning providers who offer abortions.Rural hospitals and obstetric wards will be disproportionately battered, since they are typically expensive to run and serve high numbers of Medicaid beneficiaries.More than 300 rural hospitals are at risk of closure or cutting services, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found.
Almost 100 are located in counties that have no other source of obstetric care besides the hospital, according to a forthcoming analysis from the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group,White, Native American and low-income women are especially likely to lose their sole source of care,“The one big, beautiful bill isn’t the only cause of the closures,” said Michael Shepherd, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health who studies rural healthcare,“But it can be the death knell for hospitals that are already financially struggling – many of which would have survived for years to come without the changes,”A Guardian review found that healthcare provider groups in nine states have announced that the legislation contributed to their decision to shut down hospitals and clinics, end services or lay off employees.
They include:In October, St Mary’s Sacred Heart hospital in rural Lavonia, Georgia, became one of the first hospitals to close its obstetric ward as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,Mary’s Sacred Heart hospital has long struggled with a physician shortage and what a spokesperson called “changing demographics”, but “the Medicaid cuts solidified our decision”, the spokesperson said in an email,Patients were directed to seek care in a town nearly an hour away,Tammy Frye runs the Hart Life Pregnancy care center, an anti-abortion facility about 20 minutes away from St Mary’s,The center provides women with baby gear and information about motherhood, but does not offer medical care.
Still, after the news of the closure broke, desperate moms-to-be started calling Frye and asking her for help finding a replacement doctor, Frye said.Many do not have access to reliable transportation.“They were all very nervous, very scared and upset because they were connected to their doctor,” Frye said.“What’s going to happen if these moms are in an emergency situation?”In October, Freeman Health System publicly backtracked on plans to open a hospital in a rural corner of south-eastern Kansas.A feasibility study found that the hospital was simply too difficult to open, given “the unpredictable impact of pending legislation such as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and evolving challenges in rural healthcare”, according to a Freeman Health System press release.
Maine Family Planning, which maintains 18 clinics around Maine, has long provided both primary care and family planning services.Historically, it received about $2m in Medicaid reimbursements each year.But due to a provision in the spending legislation that blocks larger abortion providers from receiving those reimbursements for the next year, the organization was forced to stop offering primary care to patients in October.About 70% of Maine Family Planning patients exclusively rely on it for their healthcare.As a primary care nurse practitioner working in the deeply rural Aroostook county, Heather Curran said she treated patients who had gone without primary care for years.
Now, after 10 years of working for Maine Family Planning, Curran’s job has been eliminated.She expects that many of her former patients will wait months to obtain appointments elsewhere, or simply go without.“I do this is because I want to improve healthcare in Aroostook county and because I love my patients,” she said.“A lot of these people are already barely getting by as it is.”Community hospital, in Nebraska, is closing the only health clinic in a small town called Curtis due to financial difficulties and “anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid”.
Two healthcare centers in rural New Hampshire closed in October, in part due to the changes in Medicaid and federal funding.“We’re really left with no choice,” the CEO of one of the centers told the Associated Press.The AP reported that the center, a branch of the Ammonoosuc Community Health Services located in a small town named Franconia, served “tiny communities around the White Mountains, whose patients typically are older and sicker than in other parts of the state”.The Medicaid cuts also prompted Kaleida Health to announce it will be shutting down a family planning clinic in Buffalo, New York, by the end of the year.It has already shut down two therapy clinics in upstate New York, also due to the cuts.
Discussions over whether to close the inpatient obstetric and newborn care services at Providence Seaside hospital, off the coast of Oregon, were already under way by the time Trump signed the big, beautiful bill,But the legislation, a hospital spokesperson said in an email, contributed to a “historic reset” that has led the hospital to shutter its obstetric ward in October,Blue Mountain hospital, near the Idaho border, has also laid off 10 people in anticipation of losing revenue,Augusta medical group, a hospital in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is closing three primary care clinics,Seattle Children’s hospital, in Washington state, plans to lay off more than 150 staffers, or about 1.
5% of its workforce.It will also eliminate another 350 open roles.Another hospital group in the Seattle area, Providence Swedish, also announced that it would cut almost 300 jobs across more than 100 departments by early 2026.
Tell us about a recipe that has stood the test of time
Recipes carry stories, and often when they have been passed down from generation to generation, these tales have a chapter added to them each time they are made. Family members concoct elaborate treats and seasoning mixes, which in some cases travel across oceans to end up on our dinner tables.We would like to hear about the recipes that have stood the test of time for you, and never fail to impress. Who first made it for you? Did you stick to the recipe that was passed down or have you improvised? What are the stories you associate with your favourite family recipe?Let us know and we will feature some of the best in Feast.Tell us about the recipe that has been handed down through generations in the form below
Alice Zaslavsky’s recipe for garlic red peppers with a creamy white bean dip, AKA papula
This week, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on an interview I recorded with legendary Australian cheesemaker Richard Thomas, the inventor of an ingredient you may not even realise is Australian: marinated feta, AKA “Persian fetta”. An unexpected stop on a trip to Iran in the 1970s gifted Thomas a chance meeting with a Persian doctor and his breakfast: fresh labneh with soft, still-warm lavash. It was a revelation. On his return, Thomas got to work creating a fresh cheese from goat’s milk (similar to chèvre) and from cow’s milk, marinated and preserved in oil, with an extra “t” to avert confusion with the Greek-style feta, that’s still being utilised by cooks and chefs right across the world.Persian fetta is a shapeshifter, capable of remaining both firm and steadfast when crumbled across the top of a platter or salad, and of yielding to a soft, velvety cream, enhancing all manner of dishes from pasta to pesto to whipped dips and schmears – and, of course, as a topping for that Aussie cafe staple, avocado toast
How to turn hazelnuts into a brilliant flour for cakes – recipe | Waste not
Each recipe in my cookbook Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet includes optional whole food ingredients such as rapadura sugar, emmer wheat and flaxseeds to boost nutrients and flavour, while also keeping things adaptable so you can use up what you already have in the cupboards. Writing a plant-based cookbook taught me new ways to save waste, and confirmed my belief that zero-waste cooking is whole food cooking. Aquafaba (the liquid from a tin of chickpeas or other beans), for example, is a powerful emulsifier that can replace eggs, especially when whisked with ground flaxseeds or chia. It’s a brilliant way of turning what we’d usually pour down the sink into cakes with remarkable lift and texture.When I was writing the dessert chapter of my cookbook, I wanted every recipe to offer new ways of making cakes more nourishing
Fish, cheese or chicken? Ravinder Bhogal’s recipes for warming winter pies
When the temperature takes a nosedive, few things compete with a just-baked pie. Don’t be daunted by social media images of perfect, artistic ones; a pie will taste just as good whether it’s rustically homespun or exactingly decorated and carved. Ultimately, what is more important is the integrity of the ingredients (both the casing and the filling). As pastry or potatoes are such a large part of the equation, invest in the best, and make sure puff pastry is all butter and filo is generously lubricated with melted butter. And, if you’re serving your pie with mash, you want it lump-free, properly seasoned and enriched with butter and cream
I’m vegetarian, he’s a carnivore: what can I cook that we’ll both like? | Kitchen aide
I’m a lifelong vegetarian, but my boyfriend is a dedicated carnivore. How can I cook to please us both? Victoria, by email “I have three words for you, Victoria,” says Anna Ansari, author of Silk Roads, who grew up in a predominantly vegetarian household: “Di si xian.” Typical of northern China, this stir-fry of aubergine, potato and peppers (otherwise known as the “three treasures”) is laced with soy, Shoaxing wine, white pepper, sugar, cornflour and, in Ansari’s case, doubanjiang. She also adds tofu (the fourth treasure, if you will) for “a rounded, one-pot/wok dinner” to eat with steamed rice. “It reminds me of being a teenager in Beijing, far from home and in need of warmth and comfort,” she says, and we could all do with some of that right now
José Pizarro’s recipe for braised lamb and kale cazuela with beans
My mum, Isabel, has always cooked slowly. Life on the family farm was busy, so a pot of lamb would often be bubbling away while she worked and, by the time we all sat down for lunch, the whole house smelled incredible. November takes me straight back there. It is the month for food that warms you, dishes made to sit in the centre of the table and to bring everyone close. Lamb shoulder loves a slow cook, turning soft and rich, especially when cooked with alubias blancas (white beans) to soak up the sauce, while a good splash of oloroso gives it a deeper, rounder flavour than any red wine ever could
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