MS NOW covers how Trump's Medicaid cuts are threatening rural Americans' health: “You just can't separate health care and affordability because they go hand in hand”
Rolla, Missouri resident: Without Medicaid-funded home visit program, “I would have died”
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From the June 17, 2026, edition of MS NOW's Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle
STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): It has been nearly one year since the president signed his One, Big, Beautiful Bill and made massive cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. Now, Americans could be losing more in and prices are going up. MS NOW national reporter Rosa Flores is traveling Route 66 to talk to real Americans about their real lives. With the midterms around the corner, she talked to voters in Missouri this week. Take a look.
[CLIP BEGINS]
VOTER 1: I'm really not into politics, but I know what's right and what's wrong.
ROSA FLORES (REPORTER): And what's wrong right now.
VOTER 1: The way Trump is treating us, and treating us poor people. I mean, it's just — it's bad because he's never been poor. He's always had that gold spoon in his mouth ever since the day he was born.
FLORES: What would you tell him?
VOTER 1: Go take a hike and let somebody else have the job.
[CLIP ENDS]
RUHLE: Rosa Flores joins the group chat, now from Rolla, Missouri. Rosa, that was some real stuff right there. He has never been poor. He can take a hike. How do these cuts play into the other affordability issues we're seeing right now?
FLORES: You know Steph, you just can't separate health care and affordability because they go hand in hand. And that's what I've been hearing in towns like this one in Rolla, Missouri. People are trying to figure out how to pay for their medicine and also how to put food on the table. Leslie Luttrell, that woman that you just saw, she said, you know, President Trump can't relate to poor people, that he was born with a gold spoon in his mouth. She lives at an extended stay motel, and she's afraid that she is going to lose SNAP, that she's going to lose Medicaid, and she doesn't know what she's going to do, she said. And here's how she described it. She said, living during Trump's second term is like living in the Great Depression. And she voted for President Trump in 2016. And she didn't vote in 2024 because she didn't have transportation. But again, she's just one person. There are so many people around the country who have the same fear, Steph.
RUHLE: Are rural voters tracing these economic impacts back to Trump policies?
ART CULLEN (IOWA STORM LAKE TIMES PILOT EDITOR): Yes, they're closing -- in Ottumwa, Iowa, a meatpacking town in southern Iowa — they've closed the health clinic. OBGYN — they don't deliver babies anymore. In Newton, Iowa, a town of 15,000 people, former home of Maytag washers and dryers. You can't —
FLORES: So what are those folks doing?
CULLEN: They're driving to Iowa city, to the Iniversity of Iowa hospitals, to have their babies. And so, if people are driving — for me to get cardiac care, I drove, you know, five hours.
RUHLE: Five hours?
CULLEN: Correct. To get an aortic aneurysm fixed at the University of Iowa.
RUHLE: Rosa, I know you talked to a woman who's actually a patient of a Medicaid-funded home visit program. I want to share a little bit about what she said.
[CLIP BEGINS]
FLORES: What would life be if this program went away?
VOTER 2: I would have died. I would have died.
FLORES: You really think so?
VOTER 2: Yes. I was at a point where I was dying, I believe, and I couldn't get out of the house. And I called so many doctors, and I always got the the watchdog at the receptionist's desk, who was very tough and hard, and treated me like I just was not cooperating.
[CLIP ENDS]
RUHLE: Rosa, how are programs like this at risk? I mean, we're hearing this woman's story. I'm just thinking, Art drove five hours for heart treatment. If he didn't have a car, if he didn't have a ride, I don't know what it would mean.
FLORES: You know, Steph, in other parts of the country, people literally need to send helicopters because some of these rural hospitals, once they're not in service and you can't get, you know, maybe you need to go further than five hours in Texas, you know, rural Texas. I mean, they have to fly to other areas. I want to tell you more about Regina, because I think she's the perfect example of how this could happen to just about anybody. She's a very well-educated woman. She has a doctorate degree. She was doing very well. It was one medical issue that downward spiraled her life, and she needed help. She just needed a little help. She needed a safety net. And that's what these programs do. They fill in the holes. They fill in the gaps for now. But if those programs are gone, if Medicaid is gone, if this woman loses Medicaid, it's life or death. And she said it herself, she would have died if it wasn't for that program.
RUHLE: David, has America seen the worst of these cuts yet or the most extreme?
DAVID GURA (BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR): No, I don't think so. And I think what's important in hearing from these people and seeing them is it's stuff that I think a lot of people outside rural areas don't have to interface with or see a lot. But no, we know in broad strokes the size of the cuts that we've seen. To see them in real relief like this is extraordinary and quite dispiriting. And I think we've talked a lot about national security. We've talked about intelligence law. The president's talking about what he wants to talk about, voting, voting rights and elections, and transgender people in sports. But this is something that's affecting so many people as Art well knows across this country. And servicing that and elevating that, I think, is so critical for us to understand the magnitude of what a crisis it is in a lot of these places.
RUHLE: Because the first woman she spoke to was almost the most important. It's like if you don't have empathy, or if you just don't even have a basic understanding of the American human condition, are you in a position to lead? Rosa Flores thank you. David Rohde, David Gura, my favorite, Art Cullen. Thank you all.
CULLEN: And thank God for Medicare.