Tyler Sherman, a nurse at a rural Nebraska hospital, is used to the area's aging farmers delaying care until they end up in his emergency room.
Now, with Congress planning around 1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years, he fears those farmers and the more than 3,000 residents of Webster County could lose not just the ER, but also the clinic and nursing home tied to the hospital.
"Our budget is pretty heavily reliant on the Medicaid reimbursement, so if we do see a cut of that, it'll be difficult to keep the doors open," said Sherman, who works at Webster County Community Hospital in the small Nebraska town of Red Cloud just north of the Kansas border.
If those facilities close, many locals would see their five-minute trip to Webster County hospital turn into a nearly hour-long ride to the nearest hospital offering the same services.
"That's a long way for an emergency," Sherman said. "Some won't make it."