453 rural hospitals are failing — Medicare for All would save them
By Diane Archer for The Hill Our for-profit health care system isn’t working for rural Americans. More than 120 rural hospitals have closed since 2010. According to a new report from Chartis Center for Rural Health, another 453—almost one in four—are at risk of failing. Corporate health insurers can’t provide coverage to meet rural patients’ […]
$44,000 for an Ambulance, Hour-Long Drives to an ER: The Impossible Cost of Healthcare in Appalachia
Rural hospitals are closing or downgrading at an alarming rate. That could be fatal. By Mason Adams for In These Times When Heather Edwards’ contractions began three months early, in March, she worried about the long drive to the hospital from her home nestled in the Appalachian Mountains in Jonesville, Va., a town of fewer […]
The Collapse Of A Hospital Empire — And Towns Left In The Wreckage
By Barbara Feder Ostrov and Lauren Weber for Kaiser Health News SWEET SPRINGS, Mo. — The money was so good in the beginning, and it seemed it might gush forever, right through tiny country hospitals in Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and into the coffers of companies controlled by Jorge A. Perez, his family and business partners. […]
Assuring continuing access to health care in rural America
By Paul Morton Ganeles for Arizona Daily Star In his Aug. 22 op-ed, Dr. TK Kelly, an emergency medical MD, appropriately stressed the problems rural residents encounter when requiring emergency medical services. During my career, I served for some 28 years as a CFO in three major metropolitan teaching hospitals; a Medicare provider appeals judge […]
Hospitals Are Leaving Rural America. Rural Americans Are Staying Put.
By Debbie Weingarten for Talk Poverty Kendra Colburn spent a decade uninsured. During those years, she worked as a carpenter near her hometown in rural Vermont, earning just enough that she didn’t qualify for low-income health care, but not enough to afford health insurance on her own. While uninsured, she suffered two major work injuries […]