Boulder City Hospital is laying off about 70 people, ceasing inpatient care and moving any patients who need an overnight stay to another facility — which Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) says is a direct result of President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The senator wrote in a Friday letter to the president, shared exclusively with The Nevada Independent, that the facility’s transition from a Critical Access Hospital to a Rural Emergency Hospital on May 1 is happening because of Medicaid cuts made through Trump’s signature law, and are likely to affect more hospitals across the nation.

“The sacrifices Boulder City Hospital is making to keep their doors open are just one example of what is occurring across the nation and what will continue to happen as the Medicaid cuts in H.R.1 go into effect,” she wrote. 

The senator wrote that Nevada’s Private Hospital Provider Tax program — established in 2024 — has helped sustain Boulder City Hospital and that reductions to the tax rate included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut its supplemental Medicaid provider tax revenue in half. Democrats and Republicans raised concerns about how such cuts might affect rural hospitals before Trump signed the bill into law. 

“The cuts to the provider fee program resulting from the passage of HR1 was an objective measure of the overwhelming cash challenges that Boulder City Hospital would need to confront in [the] next couple of years,” hospital CEO Thomas Maher wrote in an email to The Nevada Independent. “This brought the ‘event horizon’ to make decisive strategic decisions affecting the future of the hospital substantially closer. Our goal was to ensure essential healthcare services remained accessible for the community into the foreseeable future.”

He also clarified that acute care services will be eliminated, while long-term care, rehab, emergency room and other services will remain intact, though observation stays must not last longer than 24 hours. Maher said the Art in the Park and Heart of the Community fundraisers are coordinated by the hospital's foundation and “are expected to continue going forward.”

The hospital serves the 15,000 residents who live in Boulder City, about 30 miles outside of Las Vegas. Its website states that the change “is intended to preserve access to essential emergency and outpatient healthcare services for residents of Clark County while supporting the long-term financial and operational sustainability of the facility.” 

It blames low volume, inconsistent reimbursement and other factors alongside “policy pressures that make long-term financial viability very hard to achieve” as reasons for the change. 

Cortez Masto praised the $50 billion rural health fund established by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but said it was not enough to offset the cuts. 

“The Rural Health Transformation Fund included in the law is a silver lining for these hospitals, but it is simply a temporary bandage that fails to address the magnitude of harm constituted by the $980 billion in Medicaid cuts you signed into effect.” 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story was updated on 03/09/2026 at 11:25 a.m. with a quote from Maher about fundraisers that support the hospital.