{"id":13638,"date":"2025-09-24T01:20:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/virginia-republican-calls-rural-health-clinics-closures-due-to-trumps-budget-bill-a-win\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T01:20:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:20:25","slug":"virginia-republican-calls-rural-health-clinics-closures-due-to-trumps-budget-bill-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/virginia-republican-calls-rural-health-clinics-closures-due-to-trumps-budget-bill-a-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Republican calls rural health clinics closures due to Trump’s budget bill a ‘win’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Rachel Maddow<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is an adapted excerpt from the <\/em>Sept. 22<\/em><\/a> episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”<\/em><\/p>\n

If you live in Virginia, here’s a headline you may have seen recently from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:<\/a> “Three Va. health clinics close as Trump tax law squeezes system.”<\/p>\n

Residents of Virginia’s rural Shenandoah Valley region are about to lose not one, not two, but three<\/em> of their local health care centers<\/a>. All three of those centers are run by a hospital organization called Augusta Health.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> announcing these closures, the group said that the decision was “part of Augusta Health’s ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the resulting realities for healthcare delivery.”<\/p>\n

In other words, if you live in rural Virginia and are wondering why you no longer have access to a local health care facility, you can thank President Donald Trump <\/a>and the Republican Congress for gutting health care funding in their one and only piece of major legislation.<\/a><\/p>\n

The executive director of Virginia’s Republican Party was asked about those cuts by CNN. <\/a>He told them the closure of those three rural health care centers is “a win for rural communities,” because now residents will be able to get “better, more consistent” service elsewhere — meaning, not where they live.<\/p>\n

Sure, why not? Nothing says “winning” like losing access to the only clinic for miles around in your rural community.<\/p>\n

That kind of absolutely tone-deaf, callous response from Virginia Republicans would be strange in normal times. But it is an especially strange thing to hear from them at this important moment.<\/p>\n

On Friday, early voting officially began in Virginia’s high-stakes race for governor. <\/a>Right now, Republicans in Virginia control the governor’s mansion, but recent polls show Democratic candidate former Rep. Abigail Spanberger<\/a> leading her opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by as much as 12 points.<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans are swimming upstream in this election, voting is already underway — and now the Virginia Republican Party is telling rural voters who just lost access to health care, “Yeah, we did that, and you should be grateful.”<\/p>\n

Election Day is six weeks from Tuesday in Virginia. Watch this space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rachel Maddow<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award-winning “The Rachel Maddow Show” Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on BLN. “The Rachel Maddow Show” features Maddow’s take on the biggest stories of the day, political and otherwise, including in-depth analysis and stories no other shows in cable news will cover.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Allison Detzel<\/p>\n

contributed<\/p>\n

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Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sept. 23, 2025, 2:21 PM EDT By Rachel Maddow This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 22 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.” If you live in Virginia, here’s a headline you may have seen recently from the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Three Va. health clinics close as Trump tax law squeezes system.” Residents of Virginia’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13638","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=13638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}