Dr. Lisa Nee Warns Trump Medicaid Cuts Will Push Chicago’s Safety-Net Hospitals to the Brink

Nee: Trauma Care, Maternity Services and Behavioral Health Are What Chicago Stands to Lose

Chicago, IL. The Pritzker administration is alerting more than 700,000 Illinoisans that they will lose, or are at risk of losing, their public health insurance under the federal budget law President Trump signed last year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. About half live in Cook County, and local leaders warned the change “could have far-reaching ripple effects on hospitals, clinics and even for people who have commercial insurance.” Dr. Lisa Nee, the only physician in the race for Mayor of Chicago, is warning that City Hall is unprepared for what the cuts will do to the hospitals that treat those patients.

“As a mayoral candidate and physician, I am deeply concerned about what federal cuts to public health insurance could mean, not only for the Chicago patients who lose coverage, but for the safety-net hospitals and downstream effects to the city as a whole,” said Dr. Lisa Nee.

“Safety-net hospitals already operate under enormous financial pressure and the consequences will reach far beyond the balance sheets. Communities will lose access to trauma care, maternity services, behavioral health and primary care. Other hospitals will be forced to pick up the volume, as patients don’t stop getting sick when they lose insurance.

“This is why coverage cuts should be viewed not only through the lens of government spending, but through the lens of healthcare capacity and patient safety.

“There is no other mayoral candidate who has the experience to both foresee the strain on the city, and bring forward solutions to prevent hospitals from competing to solve a problem that affects the entire city.”

Under the law, adults ages 19 to 64 without dependent children must document at least 80 hours a month of work, school, or volunteering. The earliest current enrollees could lose coverage is April 1, 2027, with more dropped on a rolling basis after that. Kathy Chan, director of policy at Cook County Health, told the Chicago Sun-Times that 10 to 15 percent of enrollees already lose coverage in a given month over paperwork problems unrelated to their eligibility.

Nee is the only candidate in a field of roughly a dozen who has spent a career inside Chicago hospitals. She began as an intensive-care nurse, working nights in the ICU to pay her way through medical school, and went on to practice as an interventional cardiologist. At the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital, she exposed a backlog of unread cardiac tests that put veterans’ lives at risk and took the case to the Inspector General, the Office of Special Counsel, and Congress.