Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first’

Care workers protest proposed cuts to Medicaid in Washington DC on 23 June. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for SEIU

When Hurricane Helene drowned western North Carolina in muck and floodwater last year, it caught folks off-guard.

Now, local leaders in places like Asheville expect the Republican-led reconciliation bill – called the “big, beautiful bill” by Donald Trump – to bear down on rural America. And they wonder whether people are missing the warning signs.