according to a study<\/a> commissioned by the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/p>\nSen. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, said hospitals in her suburban and urban district are seeing more patients drive long distances from rural areas to seek care because of nearby hospitals closing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kim\u2019s concerns were later echoed by Sen. Tim Kearney, D-Delaware, who said rural hospitals are already in the middle of a long-warned \u201cimpending disaster.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arkoosh said a slice of federal dollars Pennsylvania will receive from the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program could be used to alleviate some costs. But she warned that those funds would not be enough to offset the decade-long $20 billion cut to Medicaid under the Trump Administration\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is going to be very little that we can do if these kinds of funding cuts come into play, unless the state decides to somehow try to backfill some of these cuts,\u201d Arkoosh said. The federal funds, she noted, are prohibited from being used for hospitals\u2019 operating costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tackling potential fraud<\/p>\n
Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, called attention to legislation she\u2019s backed to pass a state-level False Claims Act, which would crack down on fraudulent spending by incentivizing whistleblowers to go public. It would mirror an identical federal policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Similar proposals have lingered in the state Capitol for decades. Proponents, including Shapiro, a Democrat, say it could recover more state dollars before they\u2019re lost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arkoosh said during the hearing that her department did not have an estimate of the potential amount of money saved if the False Claims Act were adopted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she pointed to data published last week showing Pennsylvania\u2019s payment error rates were lower than the national averages last year. Medicaid, for example, saw a 0.26% payment error rate compared to the national 6.12% rate. A payment error includes both underpayments and overpayments and is not a direct measure of fraud.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome all tools to help reduce fraud in our programs,\u201d Arkoosh said about the proposed False Claims Act, adding that most fraud that did exist was done by providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Philadelphia and Allegheny County have their own false claims laws, but the rest of Pennsylvania lacks such a policy at the state level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shaky federal ground<\/p>\n
Arkoosh said that the addition of work requirements and other changes to Medicaid and SNAP adopted last year by President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress, in what is commonly called the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill,\u201d are driving Pennsylvanians to lose access to health care and food aid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That legislation, Arkoosh said, has directly driven 59,000 Pennsylvanians off SNAP.<\/p>\n
She also said that beginning in 2027, the more than 750,000 Pennsylvanians eligible for extensions to the Affordable Care Act will need to re-determine their eligibility every six months and must meet work requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know from other states that have tried to impose these requirements, historically, that most of the people that end up losing their benefits are actually still eligible for the benefit,\u201d Arkoosh said. \u201cThey\u2019re meeting the requirements, but they get caught up in the red tape on how to report those requirements.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arkoosh said her office is working on online tools to help alleviate some of the issues that some enrollees may face while filling out their documents. But already, Arkoosh said, somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 people in Pennsylvania have given up their Medicaid plans because they can no longer afford coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not adding up\u00a0<\/p>\n
Senate Appropriations Chair Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, is among the most vocal lawmakers critical of Shapiro\u2019s budget pitch to pull $4.6 billion from Pennsylvania\u2019s reserves to offset a spending deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martin noted that the Human Services Department has consistently underpredicted its annual increase in spending since 2014, creating a $7 billion gap between its predictions and actual expenses in that time period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is that?\u201d Martin said. \u201cAs we look at projections \u2026 why the underestimating of spending?\u201d<\/p>\n
Gloria Gilligan, director of fiscal management at the human services agency\u2019s Office of the Budget, said \u201cuncertainty\u201d in federal funding makes it \u201cunrealistic\u201d to predict that spending will grow at the same rate as prior years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nSometimes, your mornings are just too busy to catch the news beyond a headline or two. Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0The Morning Agenda\u00a0has got your back. Each weekday morning, The Morning Agenda\u00a0will keep you informed, amused, enlightened and up-to-date on what\u2019s happening in central Pennsylvania and the rest of this great commonwealth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 25, 2026 | 6:55 PM
Jaxon White\/WITF
I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-123581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Jaxon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/jaxonwhite_200x200.jpg\" "\\"Jaxon")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01jd-ah7t-nwph-4w6n-1280x854.jpeg\")
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