I saw this video this morning on ABC’s ‘This Week’ about rural hospitals shutting down in states that have refused to expand Medicaid. Unfortunately ABC won’t let me link to their video report.
Only the most backward red states have refused to implement expanded Medicaid. Those states are now seeing a lot of their rural hospitals closing down, with many more rural hospitals in deep financial trouble.
...a note was posted on its doors saying they were temporarily closed, and in an attempt to turn the hospital's prospects around, a new CEO, Michael Alexander, was named.
The county was left without a hospital. The next two closest hospitals are between 45 minutes and an hour-long drive away.
Across Tennessee alone, a dozen rural hospitals have closed since 2010, and, according to an analysis by The Tennessean newspaper, more than a dozen others are at serious risk of going under. But it's not just a problem for Tennessee. In the last decade, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the country, according to the University of North Carolina's Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. And an analysis by the management consultancy firm Navigant found that 21% of rural hospital in the United States are in danger of closing, too, if their finances don't improve.
Rural hospitals face a variety of challenges. They tend to serve aging communities that suffer from poor health and require expensive treatments. There are often severe doctor shortages in rural areas, and gaps in insurance coverage if patients have insurance at all. And, several studies show that rural hospitals are closing at a faster rate in states that chose not to expand Medicaid coverage to poor residents under Obamacare.
Tennessee is one of those states, and the residents of Jamestown and its neighboring communities fear losing their hospital could cost lives.
The 12 states besides Tennessee that have refused to expand Medicaid are:
Alabama
Florida:
Mississippi
Missouri
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Texas
Wisconsin
Wyoming
(Georgia is in the process of changing it’s law. )
TENNESSEE ALREADY HAS LOST 10 RURAL HOSPITALS SINCE 2012, PUSHING RURAL FAMILIES FARTHER FROM CARE. AT LEAST 15 MORE HOSPITALS ARE LOSING MONEY AND POSSIBLY AT RISK.
Michele Johnson, executive director of the Tennessee Justice Center, said state lawmakers have only worsened this problem by refusing to expand Medicaid — which would extend insurance coverage in rural areas — and by cutting existing state insurance programs. Unless the state changes course, Johnson said, there is little reason to believe that hospital closures will stop or even slow.
Even traveling through a state who’s politicians have decided that shunting down rural hospitals is a good idea, would make me a little nervous
Bill Lee: “Expanding Medicaid is not the solution. Federal dollars with strings attached is not free money, and expanding a government program without first addressing rising costs is not the right approach for our state.
“Instead, we should be working with the administration to address the rising costs in our existing TennCare program, and supporting the provider community to help patients make the right choices to address the rising rate of preventable lifestyle diseases.”
Pure double talk.
When polls closed on Election Day, one of the biggest winners wasn’t a politician at all.
Medicaid expansion – a government policy that extends taxpayer-funded health coverage to the moderately poor – saw significant victories against long odds two weeks ago. Although loudly opposed by Republicans lawmakers, ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid were approved by voters in the deep-red states of Utah, Nebraska and Idaho. Kansas and Wisconsin also elected new Democrat governors who vowed to expand Medicaid when their Republican predecessors had not.
The results appear to show increasing non-partisan voter support for expansion, which was once a political lightning rod because of its legal framework under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. But, as nearly three-fourths of the nation have now expanded Medicaid, a critical question remains: Will Tennessee?
Based on the election results, probably not.
Tennessee is of the unhealthiest states in the country. Nearly 7 percent of the population – or about 450,000 Tennesseans – do not have any health coverage, largely because they cannot afford it, according to a recent University of Tennessee study. Medicaid expansion would extend coverage to most of these residents, but the only pathway to expansion leads through a Republican-dominated legislature that has previously rejected similar proposals. And if expansion somehow sneaks past lawmakers, it will also face opposition from a new governor.
Vote Republican, lose your rural hospital.
