U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas visited Aumsville on July 31, getting a tour and a tutorial on the challenges of health care in rural Oregon.
The visit started with a brief tour of the Aumsville Medical Clinic, one of three off-campus clinics operated by Santiam Hospital & Clinics. The hospital’s other two off-campus clinics are in Mill City and Sublimity. In total, the hospital operates six rural health clinics and six specialty clinics.
Maggie Hudson, CEO and president of Santiam Hospital & Clinics, briefed the congresswoman on the Aumsville operation, noting that an “expansion is really what we need here. We’re very crowded now. There is great need and even more demand out there. We’re also suffering in terms of primary and specialty care. The shortage of providers really affects rural communities.”
Hanging over the entire health care discussion was HR1, the tax and spending bill promoted by President Donald Trump and passed by Congress on July 3. While many of its provisions don’t take effect until 2027, Salinas was out on the road trying to get a sense of how all of the likely changes – including cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition and food stamp programs – will affect those in rural Oregon.
Hudson told Salinas that 65 percent of the patients the Aumsville clinic serves are on Medicare or Medicaid.
“We’re kind of getting hit on all sides here,” Hudson said.
Salinas added that “80 percent of the people on Medicaid are working and the 20 percent who aren’t working are students, the disabled or are taking care of family members.”
By this point, Salinas and Hudson were seated at a table in the shade outside the clinic. They talked quickly, and bounced their way through topic after topic.
Hudson: “We’re dealing a lot with rising administrative costs, employee burnout and loss of staff. We’re at a tipping point with health care in this country.”
Salinas: “And we were just holding the line before. What do you replace it with? How do you get providers to come to rural communities?”
Hudson: “With HR1 people will lose benefits and some will not have coverage. Rural hospitals are our first line of defense. It feels like we are falling farther behind.”
Salinas: “We’re all going to be affected by this. Premium increases, higher deductibles. I’m not sure what it’s going to look like. We need to figure out health care in America. Oregon has been a good model.”
The conversation closed with a discussion of Santiam’s case management work with families recovering from the 2020 wildfires.
Hudson: “It was kind of a safety net. We started with $5 million in Santiam Canyon Wildfire Relief Funds. And we figured out as case managers that we didn’t have to fix everything and that we are good at infrastructure support. We walked them through the agencies.”
Salinas: “HR1 will be harmful for rural communities like the Canyon that still have not recovered.”
