Democrats Rely on Radical Groups, Paid Activists to Create Fear About Rural Hospitals

Democrats who benefit from Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse are relying on studies from sympathetic radical-left groups — and advocates paid by the insurance industry — to fearmonger about reforms in President Donald Trump’s big, beautiful bill.

The scare tactics concern rural hospitals, with Democrats parroting talking points dubiously claiming more than 300 would be shuttered if Trump’s historic legislation becomes law. Their arguments push the narrative that rural hospitals benefit from excessive fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicaid program, ignoring the financial burdens the current system places on state and federal governments that siphon resources from the most vulnerable — including in rural hospitals.

Democrats often rely on biased left-wing academics operating under a shroud of non-partisanship to influence public opinion. Breitbart News recently exposed the poor record and history of Democrat bias — and overwhelmingly-Democrat staff composition — of the non-partisan, taxpayer-funded Congressional Budget Office.

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But the groups providing the information fueling Democrats’ claims about rural hospitals have even more overt Democrat ties and have pushed for radical policies such as gender mutilation surgery for minors and taxpayer-funded health coverage for illegal aliens.

Democrats are also relying upon their establishment media allies to champion the interests of those who have a financial interest in squeezing every dollar out of taxpayers, often relying solely upon bold, unevidenced claims — like that rural hospitals will somehow be hurt by Trump’s signature legislation.

The Washington Post published a piece Monday warning the bill would lead to mass hospital closures in West Virginia. The story relied on two sources paid by the hospital industry, one hospital employee, one advocate paid by the insurance industry, and one liberal think tank to push its claims.

A favorite study from the University of North Carolina (UNC) often cited by reports and Democrats encourages states to abuse the provider tax — a tax states place on hospitals that is subsidized by federal taxpayers — to fund the coverage of illegals. Republicans argue that the provider tax and state-directed payments are financial gimmicks that wastefully increase spending not at all targeted to rural hospitals and that mostly benefits the largest health systems with the most sophisticated consultants and lobbyists.

A second study funded by Manatt Health Strategies, LLC, and touted by the American Hospital Association (AHA) focuses on the impact of eliminating coverage for non-citizens, including illegal aliens, and projections on how many able-bodied adults will forgo free coverage because they are not willing to work or volunteer part time.

A principal argument by the AHA is that the existing formula — which rewards hospitals providing taxpayer-subsidized care to illegals — must remain to continue subsidizing rural hospitals. But the bill’s proponents argue that removing taxpayer-provided health care for illegals — for rural hospitals and urban — would free hospital resources to treat the most vulnerable for which Medicaid was created.

Another often cited and fatally flawed Center for American Progress analysis does not even concern the big, beautiful bill and is primarily commentary on the potential impact of a Federal Medical Assistance Percentages reduction, which is not in the bill.

Despite Democrats playing up concerns for rural hospitals, the overwhelming majority of Medicaid spending does not go to rural hospitals. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of the Actuary, only 4.9 percent of inpatient hospital spending in Medicaid was in rural hospitals.

In addition to the dubious substance, the backgrounds of the creators of the various studies raise questions about their motives.

UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, whose study Democrats have heavily leaned on to push the claim that rural hospitals would be impacted by the big, beautiful bill, is closely tied to radical gender ideologies and the Democrat party.

Mark Holmes is the center’s director and also serves as the senior associated dean for faculty and staff affairs at the university, which offers a course titled “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Health: A Population Perspective.” The school’s other course offerings include “Foundations of Equity, Ethics, and Engagement in Public Health,” “Community Engagement and Assessment to Advance Health Equity and Social Justice,” “Leading for Health Equity,” “A Holistic Approach to Understanding and Achieving Health Equity,” “Health Equity Methods,” and “Racialization and Health.”

Holmes is officially an unaffiliated voter according to North Carolina voter registrations, but he has voted in Democrat primaries.

Holmes’s Deputy Director for Policy, Erin Fraher, is a registered Democrat with a troubling history of social media posts. Fraher serves as director of the Sheps Center’s Carolina Health Workforce Research Center, which, according to the UNC website, focuses on topics such as the “contributions of Historically Black Colleges and Universities to physician workforce diversity.” 

Fraher has posted that “more research is needed on the life course phenomena that drive this disparity” regarding black surgeons and lamented “the lack of diversity in the physician workforce.” She published a paper titled “Building a Value-Based Workforce in North Carolina,” which decried a “lack of racial and ethnic diversity” in the health workforce and published another paper titled “The evolving sex, race, and ethnic composition of the surgical workforce: North Carolina is a bellwether of national change.”

She also reposted a Robert Reich tweet saying, “Shh don’t tell the Republicans, but at Walter Reed they have socialized medicine.”

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Brian Cass, the center’s Deputy Director for Data Analytics and Information Technology with a significant role in determining data models used in studies, is an unaffiliated voter who voted in the 2020 Democrat primary and the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Many Democrats voted in the 2016 Republican presidential primary in an effort to influence the Republican nomination process.

Cass has posted to social media in support of studying “methods of reducing racial inequalities in maternal care” and supporting a “Racial Equity Series” regarding “how to dismantle structural racism in the public and private school system.”

The AHA study favored by the hospital industry includes questionable claims as well.

Manatt, whose study the AHA paper relies upon, is staffed by former high-ranking Democrat officials and has pushed a multitude of radical positions that are essentially a wish list from the “Squad.” Its high-level staff includes Mandy Cohen, the Biden administration’s Centers for Disease Control Director; Ellen Montz, a Biden Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Obama White House official; and Ross Margulies, an Obama Department of Health and Human Services official and a Bernie Sanders Fellow.

The group published a paper advocating the use of the COVID-pandemic, George Floyd riots, and the Chinese Communist Party-funded Black Lives Matter movement to push a radical equity agenda. The organization also pushed the Biden state-directed payment changes as “a tremendous opportunity to advance health equity.”

Manatt also pushed coverage for illegals, encouraging states to abuse provider taxes to fund such coverage, and has pushed for radical gender mutilation policies, which have generated a valuable revenue stream for insurance companies.

Americans overwhelmingly support rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, according to a poll obtained by Breitbart News in May. If Trump’s big, beautiful bill passes, Americans will get what they want — unless the insurance industry and radical Democrat activists get their way.

Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye