WASHINGTON – Oklahoma’s medical professionals are warning that rural hospitals across the state are facing unprecedented financial cuts and could force some to close.

Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill reduced federal funding to Medicaid by $1 trillion across the nation over the next 10 years. Oklahoma will face a $6.7 billion cut in its Medicaid program over the next decade.

This will significantly impact hospitals, especially essential hospitals, starting in January 2027.

Oklahoma Hospital Association President and CEO Rich Rasmussen, who has served the OHA for the past three years, endorsed increasing support and funding for hospitals across the state, especially for rural areas.

“This is going to be extremely challenging for rural hospitals in our state,” Rasmussen said. “Any additional appropriation passed by Congress or any rural transformation program passed by Congress does not fill the hole that they created for rural hospitals in this country and in Oklahoma.”

Since 2015, seven of Oklahoma rural hospitals has closed while 18 hospitals now are in  “immediate risk” of closing according to Center For Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform.

Rasmussen said rural communities are the breadbasket for the nation. Their hospitals might have smaller facilities and fewer patients, but they are equally important in serving their region as any other large city.

“In Oklahoma, our communities that are producing our electricity, our energy, growing our food are in rural communities, and they need that health care,” Rasmussen said. “When you put at risk a rural hospital, you run the risk of destabilizing the entire local community.”

Daryle Voss, president of the six-hospital Mercy Southern Oklahoma Communities stretching from Ardmore to Tishomengo, said they have not seen cuts like this since the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Very few rural hospitals have balance sheets strong enough to weather this storm.

On top of this cut, Oklahoma State Legislatures are making efforts to repeal its Medicaid Expansion Program, which was set in 2020 to give low-income families and individuals the health care coverage they need.

Other efforts, however, of Oklahomans might be able to vote in November on making changes to the Medicaid expansion program.

Voss said the state expansion program has helped hospitals to be more stable the past six years, but this repeal will unravel that.

“The thought of cutting another 200,000 plus Oklahomans without health insurance on top of cuts for the Big Beautiful Bill, it just would further put pressure on hospitals,” Voss said.

The Labor, Health and Human Services House committee approved its fiscal year 2027 appropriation bill with a budget of $576 million for rural hospitals, a 37% increase from fiscal year 2026.

Each state with rural hospitals will get around $12 million for resources and equipment, if given equally. Oklahoma’s 90 active rural hospitals will get $133,000 if distributed evenly.

Voss said many of these rural buildings are aging, some built between the 60s and 70s. Getting the equipment that they need is vital, but expensive especially if they cannot find parts to fix them.

“You’ve got to decide where you’re going to spend your dollars, particularly when you start getting into larger pieces of equipment,” Voss said. “When you get into hundreds of thousands of dollars, usually on the X-ray or surgical equipment side, you end up having to make do, until you have the capital to actually go out and be able to purchase something.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole said he has seen rural hospitals invest in equipment more than anything else in their spreading. He said this appropriation bill will help give these hospitals the resources they need and a better chance to survive.

“If you lose a hospital it’s a huge economic blow not just the jobs, not just the facility, but attracting new businesses,” Cole said. “A lot of people won’t locate a new business in a community that doesn’t have a hospital or a pretty immediate access to medical care.”

When these cuts come into rural communities, Rasmussen said, hospitals will have to determine what services to eliminate or reduce. This will not only impact Medicaid patients, but everyone in that community.

CEO at Harper County Hospital in Buffalo, Oklahoma, Kevin O’Brien, said two years ago, its critical access hospital, a specialized federal designation, converted into a rural emergency hospital, a newer designation without inpatient beds, to stabilize the financial aspects so the county could still have a hospital available. Buffalo is 175 miles northwest of Oklahoma City on the edge of the Oklahoma panhandle.

“The citizens of the county are thankful that we still have a hospital here, because otherwise you would drive over an hour to find medical care,” O’ Brien said.

Only 13% of rural Oklahomans live within 30 miles of a trauma center, with the remaining traveling an average of 81 miles, according to Oklahoma’s Rural Health Transformation Program.

Although these cuts will make it difficult for rural hospitals, the Rural Health Transformation Program was an effort to offset the Medicaid cuts, in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, spreading $50 billion over a five-year program that focuses on making rural America healthy again.

Oklahoma officially secured $223 million from it that will give money not just to hospitals but to all rural medical programs in the state.

“I think there’ll be some good that will come out of the rural health transformation grants that are rolling out, but we certainly continue to put programs in place where we can recruit and retain healthcare providers,” Voss said.

Rasmussen said hospitals are going to see some of this money while the rest will be spread out to EMS, behavioral health providers, FQHCs, and federal qualified health clinics.

“Now, will hospitals find a way? Absolutely, we will do everything we can to take advantage of these resources, and we’ll do everything we can to reimagine how we deliver care in rural communities,” Rasmussen said.

Voss said he is grateful for the programs and the folks living in these rural areas have done to support these hospitals

“We got to work together,” Voss said. “We’ve got to protect and preserve our rural hospitals.

Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net.