Dear Neighbor,

On my Save Our Rural Hospitals Tour, I visited the healthcare workers and patients that our rural communities rely on because I wanted to hear directly from those who work in our hospitals. I needed to know how the Republicans’ budget would impact them. My heart is breaking as I write this because if we can’t stop this bill as written, some of the hospitals I visited will have to stop serving their community or close key services.  

The Republican budget puts the health care of 266,600 Medicaid recipients in my district at risk–including 122,177 children under 19 and 26,000 seniors over 65.

But what I call the "Betrayed for Billionaires Budget" will affect everyone in a community, because when the hospitals don’t get paid for providing care, they can’t stay open. The New Mexico Hospital Association projects that New Mexico may lose up to eight rural hospitals if Congressional Republicans get their way and pass this budget. 

As one hospital worker told me, “When the hospital dies, the community slowly dies too.”

I’m bringing the stories you told me back to Congress to push back on Republican attempts to take away health care for 16 million Americans and shut down our rural hospitals

At Miners Colfax Medical Center in Raton, I learned just how critical this hospital is—it’s the only facility with labor and delivery care within a hundred-mile radius in northeastern New Mexico. We heard that OB would likely be the first service to close if the Medicaid cuts go through. One father told me families like his would be forced to leave our rural communities if they have to risk a pregnant mom like his wife having to drive 3 hours or more to deliver or in an emergency.

At Union County General Hospital in Clayton, we heard from a disabled mother who depends on Medicaid to afford life-saving care for herself and her 16-year-old son—who suffers from a rare bone disease requiring multiple surgeries. She’s deeply concerned that cuts to Medicaid would devastate families like hers across rural New Mexico, leaving them without critical care and pushing them further into poverty. With over a third of Union County’s population–and more than 60% of its children–relying on Medicaid or CHIP, the hospital is an essential lifeline for accessible, affordable healthcare in this region. Cutting funding here would mean forcing families to drive hours for life-saving treatment.

At Roosevelt General Hospital in Portales, I met with providers and staff. The hospital relies on Medicaid for approximately half of its clinical revenue, serving a patient population in which one-third are covered by the program, making it essential to their financial stability and continued operation. 

Staff at Roosevelt are deeply concerned that proposed Medicaid cuts, particularly burdensome paperwork requirements and coverage losses, will overwhelm patients, increase uncompensated care, and force service reductions that could devastate both the hospital and the broader rural community. 

Eastern New Mexico Medical Center in Roswell serves as a critical healthcare hub in a medically underserved, frontier region, providing 180,000 patient touchpoints annually and expanding essential services like OB and dialysis. 

What’s in the Betrayed for Billionaires Budget

While I’ve been worried about keeping hospital beds available, House Republicans were more concerned about tax breaks for tanning beds. I fought their bill in the House Rules committee for over 22 hours straight, staying up over 48 hours to make sure that Americans knew what was at stake. The Republican bill:

• Kicks 16 million Americans off their health care by gutting Medicaid and sabotaging the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
• Cuts $535 billion from Medicare, hurting seniors across the country
• Slashed $300 billion from SNAP, taking food away from children and families
• Makes it harder to access coverage by piling on paperwork and red tape
• Blocks private health insurance from covering abortion care, even in New Mexico, which is a sneaky national abortion ban equivalent
• Defunds rural health clinics and hospitals, putting nearly 200 hospitals at risk of closure–including 8 in New Mexico

What am I doing to fight to protect Medicaid? 

I’ll keep fighting for you–for your health, your hospitals, your family. Here’s some of what I’ve done since the Congressional Republicans introduced the Betrayed for Billionaires Budget: 

• Submitted 20 amendments in the Rules Committee. The amendments protected Medicaid funding for new mothers, babies, rural hospitals, health centers, addiction recovery, disabled individuals, and nursing homes. Republicans rejected all of them. 
• Pushed to remove a provision from the Betrayed for Billionaires Budget that blocks people dropped from Medicaid from getting health coverage through the Affordable Care Act. (Yes, their bill could condemn people who lose Medicaid to be uninsured.)  
• Co-chaired a bicameral spotlight hearing alongside Senate Women Democrats on how the Betrayed for Billionaires Budget will negatively impact women and children.
• Joined a Democratic shadow hearing to expose Congressional Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and focused my line of questioning on rural hospital closures and women’s health.
• Brought national attention to El Centro Family Health in Española where 47% of patients rely on Medicaid.
• Met with providers and patients at Taos Healthcare, which currently serves 100 Skilled Care and Long Term Care residents, 90% of whom rely on Medicaid for payment to receive care.
• Participated at a Natural Resources Committee hearing on IHS and explained how cuts would harm Native communities. IHS gets up to 70% of its funding from Medicaid. Medicaid covers 36% of non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Natives and over half of Native children.
• Signed a discharge petition for H.R. 185, Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP. The bill would block Republicans from using reconciliation to cut Medicaid or SNAP.