What An Obamacare Repeal Would Mean For Rural Hospitals

The way some of the regulations were implemented are actually harming rural America and not fulfilling the ultimate goals of the ACA. And what I mean by that is half of those 37 million - the goal was to expand Medicaid and get those folks into a Medicaid program. We know that a lot of states have taken the Supreme Court up on its option of opting out of Medicaid. That has predominantly hurt rural America. In fact, if you're a rural state, if you're a poor state, more likely than not, you have not expanded Medicaid. So we're seeing millions of folks left behind at that. Our concern is that since the ACA was passed, we've had an escalation of rural hospitals close. We've had 80 rural hospitals close since 2010. If this rate continues, in less than 10 years' time, we're going to have 25 percent of rural hospitals close within less than a decade. We do not want to see rural Americans lose one lapse in the benefits that they have. We are not mad at Republicans or Democrats. We're mad at Republicans and Democrats. We want to make sure that they understand that the well intentions of the ACA have really fallen short and may actually be exacerbating the hospital-closure crisis.