AHA issues call to action over Medicaid cut proposals

Modern Healthcare – Tuesday, May 6, 2025
By Bridget Early

With massive Medicaid cuts on the table in Congress, now is the time for health system executives to press their case that lawmakers shouldn’t squeeze the program, American Hospital Association President and CEO Rick Pollack urged at the trade group’s annual membership meeting.

“If there’s one single message that your legislators need to get right now, it comes down to: no harmful cuts to the Medicaid program,” Pollack said Monday. “We need to tell them that there will be no benefits available if we’re unable to keep our doors open. And they need to understand that cuts to Medicaid and Medicare don’t just affect these beneficiaries. They affect everyone.”

Related: Medicaid cuts bill could slip to July, key GOP lawmaker says

Pollack positioned his remarks as a kind of call to action for the hospital sector, which stands to suffer financial strain if President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress follow through with plans to cut up to $880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years as part of legislation to cut taxes.

Republicans characterize their ambitions as limited to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and insist these cuts would not harm providers or beneficiaries despite removing a huge share of program financing.

Any significant changes to Medicaid funding would have a considerable impact on hospital finances, Pollack said.

“Politicians are going to say that they’re not going to cut Medicaid or Medicare benefits, right?” Pollack said. “We’ve been to this rodeo before. That’s often code for saying that payment for providing the services is not off the table,” Pollack said.

The GOP is considering an array of healthcare cuts, mostly in Medicaid, including implementing per-capita caps on federal support to states, imposing work requirements on beneficiaries and ending enhanced federal funding for adults without disabilities covered under the Medicaid expansion from the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Congressional Republican leaders had planned to begin writing the tax-and-spending-cuts bill this week but delayed the start until next week amid disagreements. At the AHA conference Tuesday, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who chairs a key health subcommittee, said final action on the measure may slip into the summer even though GOP leaders sought to wrap it up before Memorial Day.

Pollack additionally exhorted AHA members to push Congress to renew the enhanced subsidies for health insurance exchange plans that are due to expire at the end of the year.

Accounts of the real-world effects of public policy on constituents paired with data can be powerful, said Dr. Robert Vissers, president and CEO of nonprofit Boulder Community Health in Colorado. “You just have to be the messenger,” he said at the conference.

Health system leaders should also be traveling to Washington to meet with their representatives whenever possible, said Jennifer Mendrzycki, president and CEO of Tucson, Arizona-based nonprofit TMC Health.

A top AHA lobbyist emphasized the importance of building relationships with congressional aides, not just lawmakers. “If you have the ear and the time of the policy staffers, that is huge,” said Kristin Horvath, senior associate director of federal relations.

“A lot of Capitol Hill is run by 22- to 27-year-olds who are really good at their jobs,” Horvath said. “They may seem young. They may seem like they were born three days ago. But it is worth your time and worth your effort to help them understand your story and their issue, because they’re going to make the recommendation to the boss.”

Mendrzycki highlighted her relationships with aides to Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) as an example. “What’s been the most useful for us is really working with those policy staffers,” she said at the event.

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