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Yeah this is an article with a lot of ifs and proposed, will be, estimates and opinions but in real world only 8 hospitals have closed since 2013 and I listed those and the reasons. Eight is not extremely high and with the sparse populations in many of the rural counties it doesnt make sense to have 3 small hospitals when you can consolidate resources and provided better services with one larger more efficient hospital.
The truth still remains that at least in my state rural areas havent been negatively affected by those hospital closings, people are still receiving the same medical care, if not better, and Trump supporters are not suffering. Sorry.
Used to be 2-3 car dealers in every small town also. They could not support the volume required and now most are gone.
The small town hospital is going the way of the small town car dealer. For good service, people are willing to drive.
No, you got it wrong. They reason why you don't see any new car dealers in the down towns of small towns is because years ago they fled from there to the edge of town where the land was cheaper and more of it available to display more cars.
There are two hospitals in my rural county. One of them has been expanding by building a new cancer center. I doubt either hospital worries it might close.
I can't find one doctor in this town who will give me a vision exam while wearing my eyeglasses.
I can only get one, by driving to another town when renewing my driver's license, but it takes 10 years between the exams. They don't give you much of a read-out, either.
All the eye doctors in this town only examine your eyes, without your glasses on.
I live in one of those rural areas with long delays for ambulance service, and recreate in areas far more remote. An annual subscription to our air ambulance service is $60 and covers everyone in the household. Been on autopay for a decade. Common sense to make provisions for such a thing.
Like most things-it's a matter of choice. If you can tolerate living in a densely packed concrete jungle, good for you-you'll have hospitals, fire and police within a few minutes. If you choose to live in a rural area among nature, wildlife, great views and serenity-there are compromises to make. Neither choice is for everyone.
Rural and small town hospitals and clinics are closing at a furious pace in the US. Without federal funding, these centers are not financially viable. Many will have to travel many miles for their healthcare needs. This trend is continuing. Who wants to drive over a hundred miles for their yearly check-up? Forget getting emergency treatment in a timely basis if you are having a heart attack!
For AZ I have more intimate knowledge on 2 of the 3 closures.
Florence Community Healthcare was a failed attempt to revive a small poorly run facility. The idea was to capture federal moneys by caring for the local prisoners. And that never panned out.
Hualapai Mountain Medical Center (Kingman) was formed by a group of local docs to compete with the one local hospital. They were doing really well, more able to pick and choose patients, and then the cash cow was bought out by the main local hospital. I don't think that overall local HC and access was compromised to any major extent. But the community lost out on the benefits of local competition.
We had a similar happening in our town about 15 years ago. Local hospitals in small communities can do very with their monopoly if properly run. We lost out on that competition also.
The problem is hospital ERs are forced to treat uninsured patients. That means increased costs for everyone else. And often, that's still not enough and the hospitals are forced into bankruptcy. One can search on any given year and find out how many and which hospitals filed for bankruptcy. It's a surprisingly large number every single year. Trump and the GOP just made it worse because they take away the insurance mandate, people cancel their insurance and expect the hospitals to treat them anyway.
I work in a hospital and we suffered a loss after the enacting of Obamacare. Smaller hospitals in the area either went out of business or were subsidized/taken over by larger facilities. This was because the loss of those rural smaller hospitals would overload those still open. Thanks Democrats!
Why the loss due to Obamacare? Is yours a Medicaid expansion state?
Maternity wards are also one of the biggest insurance liabilities for hospitals. That's why many are closed down in smaller communities.
They are not cash cows. And small areas serve small numbers of young growing families. Overheads remain high whether the birth facilities are used or not.
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