Boone Health Hospital in Columbia, Missouri. Photo courtesy of Boone Health
Proposed Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill may impact Boone Health’s plans to open a critical access hospital in Audrain County’s—Mexico.
Boone Health CEO Brady Dubois told Missourinet it kind of depends.
“We’re fortunate you know, Senator Hawley has come out in opposition to the cuts,” said Dubois. “The latest version being discussed could have a significant impact across the state. It could mean a potential loss of more than $1.2 billion annually in the state Medicaid budget, and so if that’s adopted as it’s currently written it could be pretty challenging for Missouri and Missourians to access healthcare.”
In October 2024, Boone Health signed a letter of intent with Mexico and Audrain County officials to begin building a critical access hospital in Mexico.
Dubois also told Missourinet that Boone Health and Anthem have a new four-year deal in place after an agreement was reached last week.
Dubois said both sides were happy with the new deal.
“There’re certainly rising healthcare costs and there’s even more concerns you know, going forward with tariff situations and all the unknown and other aspects of reimbursement that are at risk,” said Dubois.
“A lot of it just has to deal with making sure that we have a united view of data, between Anthem’s data and our internal data and syncing those up, and then also just planning on here’s where it’s got to look like in the future to be partners.”
The agreement between Anthem and Boone comes amid an ongoing contract dispute between Anthem and MU Health Care which left about 90,000 Anthem patients out of network with MU Health Care providers.
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