When all the small-town critical access hospitals close overnight...

[elehhhhna]

Due to bankruptcy, what the fuck are these rural people going to do?

The Trump voters apparently don't know that the ACA is the only thing that's keeping these hospitals open right now.

[ck4829]

1. Don't live in a rural small town then

Kind of like, if you don't our economic agenda, don't be poor. If you don't like our Islamophobia, then don't be a Muslim. If you don't like our promoting fear of refugees, then don't be a refugee. If you don't like our plan on jobs, then don't lose your job. If you don't like our position on pre-existing conditions, then don't have pre-existing conditions. If you don't like our homophobia, then don't be gay. If you don't like the alt-right's plans for killing fields, then don't be a target of their hate.

/right wing insanity

[NCjack]

4. The Trumpster fools have wrecked their rural economy. If we

let them migrate to our cities, they will ruin us.

[Historic NY]

2. I recommend buying one of those Colonial Penn policies...

so you can get buried.

[Persisted]

10. Thanks Mr. Trebeck. nt

[WillowTree]

3. What in this bill will cause the small hospitals to close?

[dalton99a]

7. Medicaid cuts

Rural hospitals are more dependent on Medicaid funds, and lower coverage rates and less Medicaid funding will increase uncompensated care charges - something they can barely afford already

[elehhhhna]

9. Medicaid, and the newly insured under the a C a

The elderly people in the small towns are really gonna be up the creek . Well, and emergency patients … pregnant women… children …

[Ilsa]

8. Most rural hospitals are hanging on by a thread as it is.

Hospital equipment usually has debt or leases, etc. And that's just one small part of it.

Doctors go to extra trouble and expense to serve rural facilities from their urban and suburban practices with little compensation.

I've gotten chewed out on DU for being concerned about reimbursement rates, but try to have a clinic or hospital while only throwing peanuts at professionals. Would you drive 60 miles each way twice a week to serve a rural facility for nothing? Why should professionals when even regular folks say, "Geez, that job doesn't pay enough for me to bother getting dressed for and travelling to?"

[moonscape]

11. The reimbursement rate thing was brought into sharp

focus for me when my beloved GP said she actually loses $$ on every Medicare patient she sees. It doesn't stop her from spending more time than average with her patients, but she did have to limit the Medicare patients she sees because of it. I live in a very expensive area on the Central CA coast, but we have had a rural designation, which means docs got the same reimbursement as those in the interior where the cost of living is far less.

Anyway, I had my gall bladder out some years ago. My surgeon was top-notch, graduated Harvard Medical School. When I saw the paperwork, I was embarrassed actually that he was paid only $300 for the surgery! Now, I'm sure he has worked out his finances and is doing well, but that was appalling to me.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. Blame Obama and the Democrats

[Blue_true]

12. My county had it really good under Obama and Obamacare.

The area is heavily dependent on healthcare and government jobs at all levels. There has been a major hospital built since 2009 after Obamacare was approved and the existing hospital for years expanded into a major care facility. There are big Oncology and Heart special care facilities outside of the hospitals.

The area voted solidly for Trump. All the stuff above? Gets blown away under Trump policies and Trumpcare. Employment likely goes back to the desperate days pre 2009 when people went bankrupt.