Rural U.S. Hospitals Are on Life Support as a Third Wave of COVID-19 Strikes

Meanwhile trump lies about doctors inflating covid #s for profit. I'm sure some of these rural areas probably lean republican.



Rural U.S. Hospitals Are on Life Support as a Third Wave of COVID-19 Strikes

The middle of a pandemic is a bad time for a hospital to close. Yet Southwest Georgia Regional isn’t unique. Hospitals in St. Paul, Minn., Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia have recently closed or are set to do so soon. And in rural areas of the country, where hospitals often have enough beds for just a few dozen patients, 15 facilities have shuttered this year as of Oct. 20, including 11 since March, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There may be as many as 18 such closures in 2020, topping last year’s record high. The hospitals in the worst financial shape generally have one thing in common: they serve the country’s most vulnerable people, who rely on Medicare and Medicaid or who are poor and uninsured.

When the pandemic struck, just about all hospitals took a financial hit. Cash-cow elective surgeries were suspended for weeks to curb viral spread. Hospitals that weren’t treating many COVID-19 patients simply ate that loss, while expenses skyrocketed at those that were, due to high demand for personal protective equipment and labor costs. A September report from hospital insights firm Kaufman Hall found that operating margins for U.S. hospitals were down 89% in the first eight months of the year, excluding federal relief funds.

Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama are among a dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid, despite having the highest percentage of financially at-risk hospitals among all states with five or more rural hospitals. The reluctance largely stems from the ACA’s unpopularity among Republicans. To make the idea more palatable, the Mississippi Hospital Association has proposed an ACA-style expansion plan like the one passed in Indiana under then-governor Mike Pence, who’s now the vice president. Still, the topic remains politically fraught.

[link:https://time.com/5901656/coronavirus-hospital-closures/|

I love Jonathan Capehart. I hope he gets the AM Joy spot

I've always loved JC. Of all the people that have been guest hosting, I've enjoyed his presence the most. I love all of them, but JC has the right balance of seriousness and humor at times to take the edge off.

745,000 people held in local jails can vote, but few do. Advocates say it's voter suppression

Unlocking The Vote In Jails
The majority of the 745,000 people held in local jails can vote, but few do. Advocates say it’s voter suppression on a national scale.

There’s been a groundswell of support for laws restoring voting rights to people coming out of prison. But the vast majority of the 745,000 people held in local jails never lost the right to vote, since they are awaiting trial or are convicted of misdemeanors. Still, voting from jail is rare. Felony disenfranchisement laws and misinformation lead many people in jail to believe they cannot vote. Most jails don’t actively provide the necessary information to get people registered, voting rights advocates say. Logistical challenges abound. And this year, with some courts closed due to COVID-19, many more people could find themselves sitting in jail on Election Day.

Many of the people working to unlock the vote in jails say the result amounts to voter suppression on a national scale. People in jail also disproportionately come from communities of color that are heavily policed. The overexposure to the criminal justice system weakens these communities’ political power and makes people less likely to vote, now and in the future, research shows.“We do start to think about those neighborhoods losing more voters than others,” said Ariel White, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And that concentration really starts to matter in, for example, local elections,” which can sometimes hinge on a few hundred votes.
[link:https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/10/26/unlocking-the-vote-in-jails|