This Old Nebraska Town Finds Out

Trump And The GOP Are Gutting Services To Their Own Supporters. Will They Care?

The Curtis Medical Center in rural Curtis, Nebraska, is slated to close now that the Big Beautiful Bill has passed and cuts are coming to Medicaid. The town gave the bill’s chief cheerleader, Donald Trump, 87 percent of the vote in 2024.

The Big Beautiful Bill is now the Big Beautiful Law.

The Republican tax cut and spending plan that will gut close to $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade will decimate healthcare across the country, especially in rural and lower-income communities that rely on Medicaid to subsidize healthcare services for poor and working-class communities.

One of those communities is Curtis, Nebraska, a small prairie town of approximately 900 people, located about halfway between Omaha and Denver, Colorado. The town, known locally for its annual Palm Sunday pageant, is likely to lose its only small medical center.

The Curtis Community Hospital, operated as an annex of a larger hospital in McCook, approximately an hour to the south, will close due to financial uncertainties surrounding the cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill. The medical center relies on grants from Medicaid to remain financially solvent, and the reductions would deplete its funds.

“Unfortunately, the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Troy Bruntz, president and CEO of Community Hospital, said.

Curtis may not be alone.