The Democratic National Committee is putting new billboards outside rural hospitals as part of a messaging campaign attacking President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill that was signed into law earlier this month.
The DNC’s billboards will be visible outside of rural hospitals that have closed or cut back services in Silex, Missouri; Columbus, Indiana; Stilwell, Oklahoma; and Missoula, Montana. The billboards all start with “Under Trump’s Watch” before detailing closure issues at the hospital. For example, passerby in Montana will see “Under Trump’s Watch, Providence St. Patrick Hospital Is Closing Its Maternity Center.”
The billboards are part of the organization’s messaging campaign “to show how Trump’s policies are hurting the people who voted for him the most,” according to a press release first shared with NOTUS. The billboards have “TrumpTax.com” repeatedly in a banner at the top; the website reads “Taking Money Out of Our Pockets to Give Handouts to the Rich” and offers bullet points on “If you’re not a billionaire, you’re getting screwed over. Here’s how.”
“Rural hospitals were already on the brink of collapse thanks to Donald Trump, but now he has put the last nail in the coffin for rural hospitals with his billionaire budget bill. In states across the country, hospitals are either closing their doors or cutting critical services, and it’s Trump’s own voters who will suffer the most,” the DNC’s chair, Ken Martin, said in a statement.
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“This is what Donald Trump does — screw over the people who are counting on him. After blowing a lethal hole in rural hospital funding, Republicans are about to find out that their flimsy funding band-aid won’t be enough to protect them from voters’ righteous anger. These new DNC billboards plainly state exactly what is happening to rural hospitals under Donald Trump’s watch,” the statement reads.
Trump’s domestic policy legislation faced a number of hurdles when it was first being hammered out in Congress. But after holdouts caved — Sen. Lisa Murkowski after receiving various Alaska-centric carve outs and House conservatives after pressure from the president — the bill made it to Trump’s desk for a July 4 signing.
Much of the tension regarding the legislation revolved around reduced federal spending on health and food benefits. Republicans, who have seen significant support from some rural and low-income areas in recent years, now have a large chunk of their base that relies on these government benefits.
One state that has a DNC billboard, Missouri, saw its Republican Sen. Josh Hawley initially indicate that Medicaid issues were a major obstacle to his vote. He even suggested that the bill amounted to “defunding rural hospitals in order to pay for ‘Green New Deal’ subsidies.”
During the lengthy negotiations process in the Senate, Hawley later appeared to be more flexible on most Medicaid cuts, but still unhappy with the areas that would impact rural hospitals. Despite these concerns, he ultimately voted for the bill.
Just two weeks after helping pass Trump’s bill, he introduced legislation that sought to roll back the major Medicaid changes that he had just voted for.
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