An Indiana hospital cut medical services. A new DNC billboard blames President Trump

Indianapolis Star

5 days ago

A new billboard on the southeast side of Columbus paid for by the Democratic National Committee blames President Donald Trump for recent medical service cuts at Columbus Regional Health and is part of a multi-state campaign to show Trump-voting communities what the party views as negative effects to rural health care in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill.'
The Indiana billboard, which was installed July 22, is one of four billboards the DNC unveiled addressing hospitals that are closing or cutting medical services across the country. In addition to Indiana, the DNC launched billboards in Missouri, Oklahoma and Montana. A spokesperson told IndyStar the party paid 'four figures' for the Indiana sign.
All four billboards are bright yellow with messages in bold black lettering specific to a health care provider in each state.
'Under Trump's watch, Columbus Regional Health is cutting medical services,' the Columbus billboard reads. It directs passersby to trumptax.com, a page on the DNC website with state-by-state impacts of the president's tax and spending cuts bill that was signed into law on July 4.
Democrats and advocacy groups have decried the large cuts to Medicaid included in the bill through work requirements and an eventual decrease in the cap on provider taxes from 6% to 3.5%. Indiana relies on those taxes, paid by hospitals, to fund its Medicaid expansion program known as the Healthy Indiana Plan.
Columbus Regional Health on June 30, prior to the bill's passage, announced it would close its inpatient rehabilitation unit and outpatient orthopedics and sports medicine services, which the organization said was due to no longer being able to 'cost-effectively provide inpatient rehab services.' The June announcement said some of the cost concerns are due to rising supply costs, 'legislative scrutiny' and state and federal funding cuts.
In a statement to IndyStar on July 22, Columbus Regional Health said it was unaware of the DNC billboard and did not provide permission to be referenced.
'Recently, Columbus Regional Health made the announcement of service line and practice closings related to increasing financial constraints and burdens our health system is currently facing," the statement reads. 'These difficult decisions were made under consideration of the many challenges and risks facing not just CRH – but many hospitals, health systems, and medical providers statewide and nationally – in order to remain financially viable.'
A $50 billion fund to support rural hospitals was added to the Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" toward the end of negotiations between lawmakers to appease senators who were concerned about the size of the proposed Medicaid cuts. But some health policy groups say it's likely not enough to help ease the impact of federal funding losses from the changes to Medicaid in the bill.
Indiana could receive some amount of money from $25 billion of the rural health fund dedicated to states that submit applications with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The CMS Administrator is expected to have flexibility to distribute the other $25 billion.
Taxes to Medicaid: 4 ways Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' could impact Hoosiers
A June letter to Republican leaders from four Senate Democrats argued that Trump's tax and spending cuts bill would put 12 rural Indiana hospitals "uniquely at risk" of closure or cutting services. But the letter, based on data from the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina, was sent out before the rural fund was added to the bill.
An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation, though, found that the rural health fund only offsets about one third of the federal Medicaid funding rural areas around the country are expected to lose under the bill. Scott Tittle, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said in a statement to IndyStar that he is also concerned the rural fund will not be enough to cover expected losses for hospitals in Indiana and that the fund itself is temporary.
'There is no additional assistance following the end of the OBBBA's five-year period,' Tittle said in the statement.
In a news release about the billboards, DNC chair Ken Martin said Trump 'put the last nail in the coffin for rural hospitals' and that Trump's voters 'will suffer the most.' Nearly 63% of voters in Bartholomew County, where Columbus is located, voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
"After blowing a lethal hole in rural hospital funding, Republicans are about to find out that their flimsy funding band-aid won't be enough to protect them from voters' righteous anger,' Martin said. 'These new DNC billboards plainly state exactly what is happening to rural hospitals under Donald Trump's watch.'
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at [e-mail].