(CNN) - Criticism is building over the Trump administration's proposed budget.
The primary sticking point is because reports show it could result in the millions losing healthcare benefits and, as a result, thousands of healthcare providers losing their jobs.
Eastern Kentucky would be ground zero for those job losses.
Dr. Anthony Yonts employs 50 people at Quantum Healthcare in Hazard, KY, and the practice is expanding.
"I would say 70 percent of our economy is driven by healthcare," Yonts said. "Healthcare is the driving economic force in our area right now."
Kentucky expanded Medicaid and created its own insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act, and has seen the number of both patients and the healthcare workers to serve them skyrocket.
Dr. Jonathan Piercy trains future doctors at the University of Kentucky's Center for Rural Health in Hazard said the expansion of facilities has been rapid due to the demand. An old Walmart Supercenter was turned into a super-sized medical center.
"We've seen a lot of clinics open," Piercy said. "We've just built a huge new wing on the hospital."
All of that comes with jobs. But those jobs are now at risk if the Medicaid expansion is eliminated by 2020 as Congress is now considering as part of a "repeal and replace" of the legislation championed by former President Barack Obama.
Since 2014, as states expanded Medicaid, 1.1 million jobs were created nationwide. The 5th Congressional District in Eastern Kentucky, which is a coal-producing region, stands to lose more jobs than any other district in the country.
"By one study, we would lose 20,000 jobs, which is about double the number of jobs we lost in the coal industry," Jason Bailey, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said. "it would be the other shoe to drop on the economy of eastern Kentucky."
Currently, nurses are in high demand and are well paid. Kentucky River Community Care now has 70 facilities, hired more than 150 employees and can't expand fast enough.
Mary Meade-McKenzie, CEO of Kentucky River Community Care said 80 percent of its funding is dependent on Medicaid, and the program ending would be a damaging blow.
"We're constantly growing," Meade-McKenzie said. "Because of our programs, we have to look at revenue to expand."
Copyright 2017 CNN. All rights reserved.
