Medicaid cuts could devastate hundreds of rural hospitals in GOP states.
Cuts to federal spending on Medicaid could affect hundreds of rural hospitals in many states that have elected Republican senators and voted for President Trump, Senate Democrats warned Thursday, citing a list they commissioned tallying 338 rural hospitals at risk.
"If Republicans plan to pass drastic cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and effectively repeal the Affordable Care Act, communities should know exactly what they stand to lose," Sen. Ed Markey, the top Democrat in the Senate's health committee, said in a statement.
Budget analysts say a slew of changes that the House bill made to Medicaid provisions — which backers argue would target "excesses and abuses" in the program — could add up to reduced federal Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion over the next decade, resulting in 7.8 million more uninsured people.
The American Hospital Association has warned Medicaid cuts being considered by Congress "could have a devastating impact on rural hospitals," which often face larger shares of patients without health insurance.
"Rural hospitals serve as critical — and sometimes the sole — source of care for rural communities," the hospital lobbying group says.
Democrats cited a list of at-risk rural hospitals that the University of North Carolina's Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research compiled at their request.
"If your party moves ahead with these drastic health care cuts that will cut millions of people off their health insurance coverage, rural hospitals will not get paid for the services they are required by law to provide to patients. In turn, rural hospitals will face deeper financial strain," the Democrats' letter states.
The center analyzed data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to compile a list of rural hospitals at the highest risk of financial distress, broken down by state and congressional district.
"Republican health care cuts would be felt by rural hospitals across the country. In Louisiana, 32 rural hospitals — or a majority of rural hospitals in the state — are serving a high concentration of Medicaid patients. A total of 33 hospitals are at risk based on serving a high share of Medicaid patients, experiencing negative total margins, or both," Democrats wrote.
The letter also itemized rural hospitals at risk in Alaska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee.
"Substantial cuts to Medicaid or Medicare payments could increase the number of unprofitable rural hospitals and elevate their risk of financial distress. In response, hospitals may be forced to reduce service lines, convert to a different type of healthcare facility, or close altogether," wrote University of North Carolina researchers Mark Holmes, George Pink and Tyler Malone in their responses to the Democrats.
As draconian and painful as this sounds, I don't think it will make a difference to the wealthier people in these communities who are not at risk or can afford to travel. The "haves" like to punish the less fortunate because it allows them to draw a line and feel superior. Especially in the south when it is poor black people getting skewered. The ol' "blame the loser" game.
Should be interesting.
Anyway, I am pretty sure that some talented human did it, not sure which one.
Initials probably are S.I.
Modern day Adam and Eve or Herbert and Eve maybe.
Anybody know about this one?
I've been doing more cooking lately. And eating.
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We had dessert first.
Quite good.
It was all good.
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Tonight I embarked on something a bit more ambitious.
This was a fairly complicated task.
I had bought several 5 lb.+ ducks last month at a secret spot for a very reasonable sum but they were doing me no good in the freezer.
I pulled one out before work and put it in the sink to thaw.
I went to the store and bought champagne vinegar and more marsala as my old bottle was getting a little tired.
I had bought green peppercorns last week, in brine, that I would definitely need.
I don't cook a lot of duck but when I do it is usually with a sweet glaze, like orange or apricot, this would be more savory.
I also scored the duck in opposite ways with my new honesuke knife so the fat would more easily render.
In the video she plops it right into a very hot oven but in her transcript she says to let it dry and hang out in the fridge for a night but I had no space or time for that so into the oven it went.
I turned it in twenty minutes, expecting another forty five minutes cooking and basting but it reached temp in twenty. Perhaps it was the extended braise?
Leslie made some wonderful noodles and we were ready to roll.
I really liked the glaze, she was less keen but really liked the duck anyway.
I love goat and never find it. I bought fresh corn tortillas and turned it in to very spicy tacos, added Mexican cheese and cabbage.
I loved it, Leslie not so much.
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This method cooks a steak in the pan with consistent color and no internal grey ring.
We pulled out our last two New Yorks from the last subprimal and tried it.
It works.
But I still like the old way better.
This is one of the two youngsters, they left the nest about three weeks ago, now only coming back for an occasional visit to eat their food.
One day soon they will vanish and find a new place to live.
This picture was taken from much farther away, not nearly as sharp.
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| John Moore - Getty Images |
Unfortunately those that oppose the draconian response by the Trump administration and act violently are only playing in to the administration's hands.
Reminds me of the recent scene in Andor where the Empire shoots their own man on Ghorman so that they can get the violence and takedown started.
They want a war with California. And they have no real interest in solving the immigration problem, that is for show.
While I believe in strong borders, the images of crying five year olds being grabbed at school and families being torn apart makes me want to weep.
I live in a rural community with a large migrant population and shudder to think what would happen to local business if it was denuded. The great majority of these people are honest and good.
Let's call a spade a spade. Do they really want to stop illegal immigration? Of course not, well at least not at their own home anyway.
Texas’ conservative Legislature has again and again refused to mandate that most private businesses use E-Verify. Experts say that Republican resistance is rooted in how the system could impact the state’s labor supply and economy.
So put up a big front against illegal immigration but don't act because you know that it will kill business and farming in your own state. How Texan.
Texas’ top Republican leaders have built a political brand on the state’s hard-line stance against illegal immigration, pouring billions of dollars into Gov. Greg Abbott’s state border security initiative, including funding construction of a border wall and deploying state police to arrest migrants on a newly created offense for trespassing. This session, lawmakers voted to require most sheriff’s offices to cooperate with federal immigration agents.
Yet again and again the state’s conservative Legislature has refused to take what some Republicans call the single most crucial step to preventing immigrants from coming and staying here illegally: mandating E-Verify to make it more difficult for them to work.
Since 2013, GOP lawmakers in Texas have introduced more than 40 E-Verify bills. Most tried to require the program for government entities and their contractors, but about a dozen attempted to expand the system to private employers in some capacity. With few exceptions, like mandating E-Verify for certain state contractors, Republican legislators declined to pass the overwhelming majority of those proposals.
But fuck those guys in California.
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I don't always or often agree with California Governor Gavin Newsom but applaud him for his recent statement that if the Federal government decides to ratchets up its culture war on California and cut programs and benefits, we stop paying federal taxes.
I am sick of subsidizing welfare grubbing red states that take so much more than they give. California residents and businesses currently give $83 billion more dollars than we receive back from the federal government. We rank in the top ten donor states per capita.
Time to secede.
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NPR - Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'.
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| The Seed of Life - Sacred Geometry |
It is not that I don't love the birds, I do. It is just that this year is somehow different. I am hardly writing, not taking pictures, sharing at a fraction of my former production.
I am not drinking, nor am I smoking herb. Not sure why, but my head and body needed a break and I am enjoying both my new found clarity and also find that my work productivity has increased for one reason or another.
I'm working more and not sharing so much.
Part of the reason I pulled the plug was that I am horrified by our current government, the failure of some legislators to have any moral red line whatsoever. I was afraid that I would write something that would put me on some one way flight to a Kafkaesque cell in Djibouti, never to be seen again.
I have friends that have kept up the volume this year but their voices seem shrill and almost pointless. They are making themselves sick. I think that the other side will ultimately do itself in and that a conservation of strength is in order now. Hide your light and withdraw as the I Ching suggests we do when fools and tyrants rule the roost.
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I am not a religious man but that does not mean that I do not find value in the teachings of the sages and holy ones.
My brain keeps going back to various texts in the bible that refer to a sabbath year. A year when everything basically stops.
I guess the main passage is Leviticus 25:
“Then Moses commanded them, saying, 'At the end of every seven years, at the time of the remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which He will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing.'” - Deuteronomy 31:10-13
“...but on the seventh year you shall let it [the land] rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat.” - Exodus 23:11Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying: "At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, that hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee"; but your fathers hearkened not unto Me, neither inclined their ear." (Jeremiah 34:13–14)[12]"and if the peoples of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt." (Nehemiah 10:31)[13]
The Pythagoreans believed 7 represented the union of the physical and spiritual, making it a number of spirituality.In Vedic scripture Agni the fire god has seven wives and the Sun god had seven horses.According to something I read, Seven is consistently voted people's favorite number.
I filed a CPUC complaint against SDGE today and sent this letter to their CEO, Caroline Winn. I have been getting these crazy estimated reads, I believe a conscious form of harassment from them in order to force us to install a Smart Meter. Several months ago I received a two thousand dollar bill from them, all based on ridiculous estimates.
Here is the letter:
June 4, 2025
Caroline WinnCEO
SDGESempra UtilitiesDear Ms. Winn,Re: #001________My name is Robert Sommers. I have lived with my wife Leslie at the property located at 2------- ln in Fallbrook since 1989. My bills have been relatively stable for the last thirty six years, rarely exceeding $350 in the hottest summer months but usually far less than that. Several years ago we had a secondary smart meter on a wind machine in our grove and watched it arc and catch on fire. It was very scary and we had it disconnected. My wife suffers from a neurologic condition ---------------- that results in extreme pain and our home subpanel is located on the outside of our bedroom wall, three feet from her head. Because of this we pay an extra ten dollars a month for a conventional meter as she does not want to get triggered.Unfortunately, this means that we get estimated bills. This only started about two years ago. That would be okay but they have been exorbitant, nothing close to our actual usage the last 36 years. Eight hundred dollar estimates, five hundred dollar estimates. I have called and complained and got nowhere. Last month after a high bill I called and the lady said not to worry, it would drop this month. It did not, another $511 bill. I called to get an explanation and complain and to voice my dissatisfaction yesterday and got nowhere. I asked to speak to a supervisor and the woman told me that none were available and that someone would call me back. They have not.I have to wonder if the high estimated bills are a form of harassment meant to force me into the smart meter program? Why are they always high and never low, based on my long history of usage? Why do they not more accurately reflect my electrical usage history? Why am I told that I will get a read every other month when it is clearly not happening and resulting in these ridiculous amounts? What can be done to generate power estimates that are more in line with reality?I want to pay what I owe but these huge estimated reads are hamstringing me financially. Please advise me and help me resolve this matter.Sincerely,Robert SommersBlue Heron Gallery113 N. Main Ave.Fallbrook, CA 92028
The blog has been fitfully sleeping the last few months. But even in its somnambulant state it still moves by slow inertia under the weight of the over thirteen thousand posts I have written to date.
And in the next week or two I will have hit eight million views. Whooppee! Seems like we just cranked over the seven million viewer mark.
I have been watching my stats during my absence and a cool thing is happening. People are actually reading my short stories, a point of pride for me. I love to write short fiction although I daresay some of you think that everything I write is fiction. I get you. Anyway my short stories have been trending each week and that makes me happy.
I rarely can write short stories and need to be in a certain space that just doesn't happen very often. Hope you enjoy them. Something to remember me when I am gone.
Because none of us live forever.
I have lost several friends these last few months, some I am sure that I am forgetting. We lost our musician friend Barry Goldberg, shown here with his lovely wife Gail.
The founder of the Electric Flag, Barry loved Tiffany glass and kachinas and was cooler than cool. This picture was taken in my booth at the Bustamante show in Pasadena, I love my inventory back then! That bird has flown.
Remember, give your loved ones a hug at every possible opportunity, don't wait too long!
This movie doesn't last forever!