What Medicaid Cuts Would Do to My Rural Hospital

If you have ever felt stress after passing a highway sign warning, “No gas next 90 miles,” you understand the importance of my hospital. I am the chief executive of Lincoln Health, a 25-bed county-owned hospital in Hugo, Colo., a town of about 800. We are the only hospital on the I-70 corridor between Denver, 85 miles to our west, and Burlington, near the Kansas state line, some 80 miles to the east.

In 2021, a pileup involving dozens of cars on that highway brought more than 30 patients to our two-bed emergency room, where our small staff sprang into action to stabilize the most seriously injured patients. Our hospice team met with the family of a child who died at the scene of the accident. One fatality is too many, but without our hospital, there surely would have been more.