Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton held a roundtable discussion on Nov. 5 at SIU School of Medicine in Carbondale to assess the most urgent needs for rural health services amid upcoming federal cuts to health and Medicare programs. 13 representatives of rural health services attended, including Shawnee Health, SIU School of Medicine and the Illinois Health and Hospital Association.
A key topic of discussion during the meeting was upcoming cuts to Medicare as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. While the law includes a $50 billion grant to rural hospitals to offset cuts to Medicare, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, it is also estimated to cut $500 billion in Medicare funding over the next eight years. Shawnee Health CEO Christina Carney raised concerns over patients that have no alternative to Medicare available to them.
Carney said 60% of Shawnee Health patients are currently on Medicaid.
“The issue is that the individuals who are on Medicaid are not individuals that are going to be able to afford another health plan,” Carney said. “These are not individuals that are unemployed, but these are not individuals that are going to be able to afford a commercial [insurance] plan. So we’re not going to a different plan that’s out there. We’re going from Medicaid, which is not sufficiently funded, to no payment, which is of course not funded at all.”
Jordan Powell, vice president of the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, raised concerns of the feasibility of a health care solution on the state level when accounting for the sheer size of budget cuts.
“I think that’s great for us to think about solutions,” Powell said. “But if these cuts move forward as is, I don’t believe there’s a solution that’s going to prevent significant reduction of services and hospital closures. You mentioned individuals losing access to Medicaid, they’re going to continue to come into the hospital. They’re going to be in our emergency rooms, we’re going to be providing that care with the reduction of provider taxes. [Illinois Healthcare and Family Services] just estimated that’s going to be a $2.8 billion reduction annually, beginning in 2031.”
Following the discussion, Stratton shared some of the key issues that she would be raising with the Illinois Rural Affairs Council, which she chairs.
“The main thing that I’m going to take away is that these cuts will be devastating to southern Illinois,” Stratton said. “We have right now nine hospitals in rural communities that are on the chopping block, six of them right here in southern Illinois, and the fact of the matter is that means a hit to the local economy, it means people not being as healthy, it means some of our most vulnerable Illinoisans won’t have access to the care that they need.
“We live in the United States of America, people should have access to quality, affordable health care and we’re going to keep fighting to protect the people that we represent,” she said.
News reporter Morrigan Carey can be reached at mcarey@dailyegyptian.com. To stay up to date with all your southern Illinois news, follow the Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Twitter.
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November 6, 2025 at 12:13PM
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