Axios published a link-rich roundup regarding the crisis facing Hennepin Healthcare, particularly its flagship facility Minneapolis’ Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), the majority of whose patients are uninsured or on Medicaid.
The mainstream media outlet frames HCMC’s troubles, including a potential closure, as “a warning” and a “canary in the coal mine” for safety net hospitals across the country.
“Everyone’s standing at a precipice. It’s just that Hennepin Healthcare’s precipice is much more precarious," University of Minnesota healthcare economist Sayeh Nikpay told Axios.
The article describes a tenuous financial situation at Hennepin Health even before last year’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act prescribed monumental cuts to Medicaid. It notes that Hennepin Health experienced a “breathtaking” 44% increase in unpaid patient bills between 2023 and 2024, which may have resulted from the expiration of pandemic-driven protections for Medicaid coverage. HCMC posted operating losses in seven of the last eight years, Axios reports.
Beth Feldpush, senior vice president with America’s Essential Hospitals, a hospital advocacy association focused on high-quality care for patients facing social and financial barriers to access, told Axios that “looming” financial pressures on hospitals like HCMC “are so great that we are going to see hospitals close in smaller communities, maybe larger urban centers.”
The report notes that Hennepin County commissioners are asking state lawmakers for permission to repurpose a Target Field (baseball stadium) sales tax to save HCMC from closure.
It also reports on the disenchantment of HCMC’s unionized workforce.
Read Axios’ full report here.
