Rhode Island Congressman Seth Magaziner met with health leaders at Wood River Health on Monday to underscore how cuts to Medicaid would affect community health centers.
HOPE VALLEY, R.I. (WLNE) — Rhode Island Congressman Seth Magaziner met with health leaders at Wood River Health on Monday to underscore how cuts to Medicaid would affect community health centers.
The visit is in response to a Republican budget resolution that proposes a minimum of $880 billion worth of cuts expected to come out of Medicaid.
According to Magaziner, over 81,000 Medicare beneficiaries would be affected by the cuts, as well as the community health centers in the state with the majority of funding coming from Medicaid.
“Medicaid funding will have significant negative impacts on the health of the over 210,000 Rhode Islanders who depend on community health centers, like Wood River Health for their care,” Rhode Island Health Center Association President and CEO Elena Nicolella said.
President and CEO of Wood River Health Alison Croke said that cuts to Medicaid would be “financially devastating” for both the health center and patients.
Croke said in 2024, out of 10,428 “unique patients” at Wood River Health, 3,088 were Medicaid patients. Additionally, 40% of medical visits were Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as 75-85% of dental visits.
“Of these, we have 1,211 patients eligible through the Medicaid Expansion provision. If those patients choose not to seek care or become sliding fee scale patients, that’s a conservative loss to our organization of about $368,000. On a $12.5 million operating budget, that’s pretty significant,” Croke said. “To absorb a loss like that, it wouldn’t just impact Medicaid patients, it would impact all our patients. We would have no choice but to look at current personnel levels and reduce services and our locations. This would be financially devastating for our community health center and our patients.”
Article by Cate Hanewich at ABC6.
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