'Already operating in the red': Hospitals and Nebraskans bracing for cuts to Medicaid

By Maddie Augustine, KETV

(July 3, 2025)

OMAHA, Neb.—The House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill. The legislation makes tax cuts permanent and provides more money for the southern border and national security, among many other things.

All House representatives from Nebraska and Iowa voted for the bill Thursday. However, many people say it's not without significant impacts.

The bill will cut nearly $1 trillion in funding to Medicaid. The Nebraska Hospital Association says those cuts will result in 78,275 Nebraskans losing their health coverage.

"These additional Medicaid cuts, that's going to have a significant impact on their ability to, to provide services to their patients," Meghan Chaffee, chief advocacy and legal officer for NHA said.

One of those Nebraskans, 29-year-old Samantha Chavez Jurado. Samantha's sister, Vanessa, said their family's life changed suddenly in December 2022, when Samantha had a medical emergency.

"She walked herself into the ER," Vanessa said. "Turns out that it was a ruptured brain aneurysm. And just a couple weeks later, she was in a coma in the ICU for several weeks."

Vanessa said that's when Samantha suffered a severe stroke, which caused her to lose her ability to walk, talk and move her right arm.

"Her whole life has changed," Vanessa said. "Thanks to supports provided through Medicaid, we were able to make sure she had a strong recovery and that she's able to have the resources she needs to adjust to her new normal with limited mobility. We never thought we would need Medicaid, but that's the thing, a lot of folks don't know that they will need it."

Now, the family said Samantha is 100% reliant on Medicaid, and it's the reason she has the medical equipment, like her wheelchair.

"It can be everything from permits, her doctor's appointments, supplies, medical supplies, everything," Rosalva Jurado, Samantha's mother said.

Samantha's parents, Rosalva and Jorge, are her full-time caregivers, while also working full time jobs.

"Without Medicaid, we would have to quit our jobs to be with her," Rosalva said.

The NHA said, however, it's not just individual care that can be affected. They're also concerned with $3.6 billion in funding to Nebraska hospitals being lost over 10 years.

"Right now, we know that 44% of Nebraska's hospitals are already operating in the red," Chaffee said.

Chaffee said the cuts will force hospitals to potentially eliminate services.

"Hospitals are going to be looking at service lines, you know, labor and delivery, behavioral health EMS services, hospice like these are real services that hospitals are now going to be faced with," Chaffee said. "Can they sustain those? Are those, viable service lines that they can provide to their community. If they have to close those services that's not just closing services to Medicaid patients, that's closing services to all community members. Once those services are gone, it's it's a significant effort to get those services back in a community. So, I all Nebraskans are going to be feeling the impact of these cuts, not just Medicaid patients."

Chaffee said some hospitals will have no other option than to shut their doors.

"We've already seen Community Hospital in Curtis, Nebraska announce their closure," Chaffee said.

She said the association was disappointed in the "way things shook out with the final passage of the bill."

"We were advocating to go back to the original House language that struck a fair balance, that had reasonable guardrails, that still achieved the house's target of savings," Chaffee said. "That was our advocacy, to go back to that house language and we didn't see it in the Senate, and the House just adopted that Senate language."

Chaffee said they won't stop advocating for Nebraskans and the state's hospitals.

"We would just ask, please minimize the cuts to Medicaid and the impacts in these health care policies, as there are new opportunities going forward, as there are additional pieces of legislation that they're considering," Chaffee said. "Can we go back and get it right and find the right balance? Because this is this is too far out of balance for the average Nebraskan. Hospitals are there to take care of you 24 seven and, you know, we will be advocating, nonstop to to keep those service lines open and keep those hospital doors open."

The NHA said with thousands of Nebraskans losing their health coverage, hospitals will treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.

"When you see these other, health insurance plans, not keep up with the cost of care. That cost has to shift somewhere. And so oftentimes it has to go to the private market," Chaffee said. "Average Nebraskans are likely to see their premiums rise because private insurance is going to have to be making up for the that shift in the cost of care."

The NHA said generations could be impacted by the changes under the bill.