Exclusive: Schumer probes $50 billion rural hospital "slush fund"

Top Senate Democrats on Friday accused Republicans of using a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals to "pay off" GOP lawmakers for their support of the "big, beautiful bill," Axios has learned.Why it matters: Democrats are demanding clarity on how the fund — created to ease the brunt of GOP Medicaid cuts — will be distributed to states.Over a dozen Senate Democrats penned a Friday letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz seeking the state-level decision details."Republicans in Congress hastily developed the rural health slush fund to buy their members' votes and give their caucus political cover for voting for the reconciliation bill," the lawmakers said in the letter.Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) led Democrats in pressing Oz on the fund.Catch up quick: Republican leaders on Capitol Hill included the $50 billion fund in President Trump's sweeping domestic policy package to assuage intra-party concerns about the potential widespread closure of rural hospitals due to the bill's historic cuts to Medicaid.The fund was particularly important in the Senate, where it helped win key GOP votes, most notably those of Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).Trump's "big, beautiful bill" included around $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, the deepest since the program's creation in the 1960s.Driving the news: Democrats raised concerns that several Republican lawmakers have publicly touted how much money their states will receive from the fund, despite little information on how those decisions will be made."We are alarmed by reports suggesting these taxpayer funds are already promised to Republican members of Congress in exchange for their votes in support of the Big, Ugly Betrayal," the lawmakers said in the letter.The law says $25 billion is to be distributed equally among all states that submit a "detailed rural health transformation plan." But Democrats say the details on what that application should look like are vague.CMS must make a ruling on each state's application by the end of the year.What's next: Schumer and Democrats asked Oz to provide lawmakers with answers by the middle of August, arguing Oz must "move with urgency to provide clarity to rural communities, states, hospitals, and other health care providers about the fund."

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