{"id":10827,"date":"2025-07-01T05:17:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T05:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-rejects-susan-collins-amendment-to-boost-rural-hospitals-raise-taxes-on-wealthy\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T05:17:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T05:17:18","slug":"senate-rejects-susan-collins-amendment-to-boost-rural-hospitals-raise-taxes-on-wealthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-rejects-susan-collins-amendment-to-boost-rural-hospitals-raise-taxes-on-wealthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate rejects Susan Collins amendment to boost rural hospitals, raise taxes on wealthy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Senate rejected a bid by Sen. Susan Collins<\/a> (R-Maine) to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and boost money for rural medical providers in the GOP\u2019s megabill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The chamber voted 78-22 against a procedural motion related to her amendment, which would have increased a rural hospital fund from $25 billion over five years to $50 billion and allowed a wider range of health providers to tap it. The amendment also would have raised the top tax rates for individuals who earn more than $25 million a year and couples earning more than $50 million starting next year.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether the failure of the amendment could cost GOP leaders Collins\u2019 vote. She had been concerned about the impact on rural hospitals from the bill, and even questioned if any amount in a rural hospital fund would help offset the losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cRural providers, especially our rural hospitals and nursing homes, are under great financial strain right now, with many having recently closed and others being at risk of closing,\u201d Collins said before the vote. \u201cThis amendment would help keep them open and caring for those who live in rural communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in opposing consideration of the amendment. Sen. Ron Wyden<\/a> (D-Ore.) called it a \u201cBand-Aid on an amputation\u201d that would barely offset the other health care cuts in the bill: \u201cIt would be much more logical to simply not cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the first place,\u201d he said. Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff<\/a> and Raphael Warnock<\/a> and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner<\/a> were the only Democrats to vote with Collins, along with independent Sen. Angus King<\/a> of Maine.<\/p>\n

Several GOP senators have aired concerns that the bill\u2019s cuts to Medicaid in the bill would force rural hospitals to close. The bill lowers the amount a state can tax a hospital and then use the funding to qualify for more federal Medicaid dollars without having to dip into their own general funds. Hospitals don\u2019t mind the tax because they can get higher payments from their state.<\/p>\n

Conservatives have claimed these provider taxes amount to a \u201cmoney laundering\u201d scheme that enables states to use the extra federal dollars for other things. But the hospital industry has fought this claim, arguing that the provider taxes are needed to help rural hospitals that operate on thin margins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Senate rejected a bid by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and boost money for rural medical providers in the GOP\u2019s megabill. The chamber voted 78-22 against a procedural motion related to her amendment, which would have increased a rural hospital fund from $25 billion over five years to $50 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}