AJC: “The hardest hit hospitals are largely in rural areas represented in Georgia by Republicans…”

St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia, Georgia is being forced to close its labor and delivery unit as a result of Donald Trump’s harmful budget law, according to new reporting from the AJC. 

The report highlights how the sweeping Medicaid cuts supported by every GOP U.S. Senate candidate are resulting in more hospital closures — another hospital in Claxton, Georgia announced it could be forced to cut their ICU as a result of the GOP law.

Here’s where the GOP U.S. Senate candidates stand on the cuts forcing hospital closures:

• “MAGA warrior” Rep. Buddy Carter led the subcommittee that oversaw the massive cuts to Medicaid and said that he “wanted to cut Medicaid more” and was “very proud” to cut Medicaid.
  
  • In AJC’s report, Carter once again doubled down on his support of the disastrous Medicaid cuts despite St. Mary’s closure.

• MAGA extremist Rep. Mike Collins said he wants people to “get off of Medicaid, get off of Social Security.”
  
• Derek Dooley supports the law despite the devastating impacts it could have on Georgians.

Read for yourself:

AJC: Medicaid cuts ahead prompt Lavonia hospital to shutter childbirth unit
By Michelle Baruchman | September 18, 2025

KEY POINTS:

• A northeast Georgia hospital is closing its labor and delivery unit after determining that its precarious finances could not weather further funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s new tax and spending law.
  
• The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by congressional Republicans and signed on July Fourth slashes health care spending nationwide over the next 10 years by more than $1 trillion. 
  
• In rural areas alone, federal Medicaid spending will be cut by about $137 billion, according to the health research organization KFF. 
  
• Like many rural hospitals in Georgia, officials at St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia said they face challenges recruiting physicians to the area and are contending with an aging population and fewer young women having babies.
  
• Hospital spokesperson Mark Ralston said anticipated cuts to federal assistance forced the hospital’s hand.
  
• Many struggling hospitals already teetering on the edge have seen the federal cuts as a death knell. 
  
• The hardest hit hospitals are largely in rural areas represented in Georgia by Republicans, but the opposition to the budget reconciliation law has primarily come from Democrats.
  
• “This is a hospital here in Georgia that is no longer going to be able to provide services to delivering mothers and newborn babies because of that terrible bill that they passed in Congress,” said U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Atlanta.
  
• U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island, who voted for the law, said in a statement the hospital could take advantage of the $50 billion rural fund “to keep its doors open.”
  
• However, that funding is temporary and not limited to just hospitals.
  
• “Blaming any closures on savings made to address waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid is a false argument,” Carter said.
  
• Elsewhere in Georgia, Evans Memorial Hospital, located 50 miles west of Savannah in Claxton, is facing a $3.3 million budget shortfall next year.
  
• Hospital closures have significant impacts on rural communities, especially where health outcomes like cancer rates and heart disease tend to be worse. The health networks also are large employers, often providing hundreds of jobs.