Hundreds of rural hospitals are at risk of closing, threatening critical care

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: msn/CBS News

12h


Hundreds of hospitals in rural parts of the United States are in danger of closing because they can no longer afford to stay open, according to a new report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. The main reason: Insurance companies pay them much less than their big city counterparts for the same services.

In Trinity, Texas, about 90 miles north of Houston, Midcoast Medical Center recently had to close its doors. "It has a huge impact on the community. We will lose lives. Four hundred people a month come here," Marjory Pulvino, who runs the hospital's board, told CBS News. In the East Texas Piney Woods, Midcoast was more than a building. It was a lifeline where babies were born and where the heart of Cathy Courtney's 90-year-old husband was restarted, saving his life.

Courtney said she and her husband had used the facility "about six times in the last 14 months." Midcoast officials told CBS News the closure was driven by the same factors that have closed other rural hospitals: low reimbursement rates from elderly patients' Medicare and Medicaid coverage, which made up most of the hospital's budget. Hospitals in urban areas, meanwhile, get significantly more reimbursement from their patients who have private insurance, which tends to pay more.

Republicans' proposed cuts to Medicaid could leave more than 8.5 million people uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and force even more rural hospitals to close. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform's report found that 742 rural hospitals are at risk of closing, with over 300 of those being classified as being at "immediate risk."

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-of-rural-hospitals-are-at-risk-of-closing-threatening-critical-care/ar-AA1F5Ii0

[bdamomma]

1. How many more

Americans will die because of this incompetence, I guess the felon wants to add more deaths to his Covid death count.

[surfered]

2. Rural hospitals are very dependent on Medicaid.

[Lovie777]

5. And the GQP are upset that Medicaid...

is not defunded more because the rich will probably suffer for not getting additional tax cuts.

[dutch777]

7. Very true and Medicaid pays pennies on the dollar of real cost of treatment. Medicare is more generous.

Having worked in a mid size community (non-profit) hospital administration before I retired, we could never cover true cost of care with Medicaid alone. Luckily we were in the suburbs of Seattle and had a lot of private insurance patients who worked at places like Microsoft, Boeing and other employers with great health insurance and supplemental HSA benefits. We offset what we lost from Medicaid by running very efficiently and the better compensation from private insurers. Even at that, while we were a $$ billion enterprise annually, we would routinely end the year with less than $ 1 million in free cash reserves. We set our cost goals so that we could survive on Medicare level payments as we felt that was going to become the standard payment structure of even the private insurers eventually. While rural hospitals can usually pay less for salaries, the rest of their operations are usually very inefficient as they do not have economies of scale that bigger hospitals have with more patient thru put and ability to buy in large quantities for supplies.

[XanaDUer2]

3. Isnt rural America trump country?

[surfered]

11. Tragically ironic, isn't it?

[XanaDUer2]

13. Some ppl gotta touch the flamr

Anyway they'll just blame dems

[hamsterjill]

14. Exactly!

Here in rural Texas, they are MAGA beyond belief. But if their local hospital can't handle their ailments, they are the FIRST to run to the blue cities to take advantage of the medical care.

I know one woman who had a heart transplant and has actually done quite well after having it. She's super MAGA and doesn't ever consider what "socialism" practices went into the research and development and care that she got when she needed it.

Everyone deserves medical care. Full stop. Whether MAGA or otherwise. But it would sure be nice if they would take the time to understand how things work. It might change their minds about who they vote for. Nah!!! That'll never happen.

[carpetbagger]

24. I was a doctor in a small/25k Texas town.

I would only add that there is a substantial subset who are too afraid to go to the city for anything even when needed.

[XanaDUer2]

25. Well said

Nt

[ananda]

21. OMG!

"Is this what we voted for? No healthcare?"

[OrlandoDem2]

4. Democrats need to hammer affordable healthcare, affordable housing, affordable college, and affordable groceries.

Stick to things that the vast majority of Americans deal with on a daily basis.

I have no doubt that my great party will do just that!

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Harris/Walz

spent $1 billion doing just that and the other side instead tapped into something more "primal" and "visceral" in the populace - their personal, wedge-issue grievances, while continually lying in their promises about what could solve their common sense economic issues.

So by tapping into pure, unrelenting bigotry, they have created a zombie population elated at the hunting down and physical removal of brown people who came here from other countries in fear of their lives in order to build anew, and are celebrating the erasure of whole cultures whose ancestors built this country before most of these elected officials' families got off the boat, and that has allowed this group to "accept the pain" of an economic disaster unfolding around them, because they could now "own the libs".

These are people who are not in need of "reaching across the aisle to" but are in serious need of psychiatric help.

[Keepthesoulalive]

27. They don't care

They know what they know and anything else are liberal lies, socialism, communism and anything that might help someone they deem unworthy. Please stop pretending they give a crap unless it affects them. The things you speak of don’t matter to them or they would not keep electing republicans.

[HappyLarge]

28. We do. It doesn't matter when you have 40 years of right wing propaganda 24/7.

Those were the things Kamala campaigned on. But she had a vagina and was brown so, nope can have that. Our nation has a longterm case of debilitating bigotry. Until and unless we somehow mange to control it, it will be fatal.

[Diamond_Dog]

6. Republicans want to cull the herd. Plain and simple. Let the poor and frail die.

[surfered]

12. Herd immunity and with more money comes more immunity...or as we used to say...

...Life is a shit sandwich, the distaste of which is inversely proportionate to the amount of bread you have.

[DBoon]

16. it is called eugenics

and they are not afraid to admit it

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01297-4

In 1924, motivated by the rising eugenics movement, the United States passed the Johnson–Reed Act, which limited immigration to stem “a stream of alien blood, with all its inherited misconceptions”. A century later, at a campaign event last October, now US President Donald Trump used similar eugenic language to justify his proposed immigration policies, stating that “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now”.

[travelingthrulife]

8. If only these people could understand that it is the GOP doing this to them.

The GOP Congress could end this Trump nightmare this week. He has many impeachable crimes and misdemeanors.

[Du916]

9. TFB

Rural America voted overwhelmingly for the Orange Dumbfuck. Elections have consequences. I want those who voted for him to suffer. Maybe then Rural America won’t vote against their own interests.

[Justice matters.]

19. They watch Faux Noise and listen to hate radio.

Both of which will tell them it's the Democrats' fault, over and over and over again until they will believe them.

[Bayard]

15. This will probably affect our little local hospital

Its more of a first aid station than anything else, but they knew enough to send me on to a big hospital with a broken arm and appendicitis.

[Grins]

17. Sorry for this, but GOOD!

They voted for this, and they deserve to get it good and hard! (Hat tip: H.L. Mencken)

Rural hospitals have been either closing or in danger of closing going back to the debates over the Affordable Care Act. Those who warned - were ignored. Even though they were the rural people affected.

Only when it hits them hard and personally will this change. (Maybe. But it's going to be quite the ride!)

[Falcon101]

20. Nothing Will Change

Till MAGA feel pain so bring it on. Let us see the regret voters piss and moan

[Aristus]

18. Way to go, Red State America.

You sure showed us citified lib-tards, didn't you?

Good luck getting your owies treated by your Uncle Cooter with the dirty hands and the moonshine breath.

[patphil]

22. A lot of rural areas in the United States are essentially Medical Deserts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_deserts_in_the_United_States

This situation is going to get worse as brutal budget cuts to many federal health programs make the hospitals and clinic's in rural areas so unprofitable that they have to close because the people these facilities serve are going to lose their health insurance, and don't have enough money to pay for healthcare themselves.
With the facilities closed, the health care workers will be forced to leave the area, and many will never come back, even if the Trump government is eventually voted out of office, and agency funding is restored.

This will not only drastically reduce the quality of life for millions of people, but actually kill a lot of people.
The immense damage the Republicans are doing to this nation will be with us for decades.
This is a new kind of domestic terrorism, with a reverse Robin Hood theme.
Take from the poor and give to the rich.

[fujiyamasan]

29. Yes, it's very difficult as it is to get doctors to practice in such areas

There’s an increasing number of doctors not willing to take Medicaid patients. This will make it even worse.

[modrepub]

23. Improper Framing

Medicare cuts equate to job cuts.

Hospital systems are generally the largest employers in rural counties. If they shut down because of these cuts, hundreds to thousands of jobs will be lost and county tax coffers will ultimately suffer.

[Irish_Dem]

26. How many Americans will they kill in four years?