16-04-2025
Warner voices concerns about possible Medicaid cuts during SWVA visit
ABINGDON, Va. (WJHL) — U.S. Senator Mark Warner has spent the first half of the week in Southwest Virginia. On Tuesday morning, Warner made a stop in Abingdon to get an early look at the soon-to-open Appalachian Highlands Dental lab.
The new lab is set to open Thursday with a 'floss-cutting' ceremony and will make crowns and dentures for the dental clinic.
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Warner helped secure federal dollars that helped fund the creation of the lab. The dental center is preparing for an expansion to the clinic and its residency program.
According to Warner, 73,000 Southwest Virginians became eligible for dental care when Medicaid was expanded years ago. The Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center opened in 2020, the year before Medicaid's expansion, and since then, the center has maintained a constant waiting list.
As of Tuesday, 2,300 people were awaiting dental care at the center. A staggering majority of the patients who receive care at the center are on Medicaid, according to the clinic's leadership.
'83% of our patients are on Medicaid, so it's huge for our community, for Southwest Virginia, that Medicaid still be part of that,' Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center Executive Director Elaine Smith said. 'We need to continue that.'
'I wanted to hear from all of the providers,' Warner said during the visit. 'And we've got to make sure we keep and preserve these services. And truthfully, people think Medicaid, 'Well, that's just for poor people.' Now it's for kids. It's for a lot of our adults. It's for working families.'
Warner expressed concern about potential hospital closures in rural areas if Medicaid is cut too much at a federal level.
'The truth is, the way our system is set up, if you cut Medicaid too much, you're going to see our hospitals shut down,' Warner said. 'I think it took us about ten years to reopen a small hospital in Lee County. You take away Medicaid, that hospital disappears. Most of the other regional hospitals will disappear, and that's what's at stake.'
Warner told News Channel 11 that he hopes lawmakers will set aside party alliances when considering making cuts to programs like Medicaid and Social Security and instead think only of their constituents.
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