Across the country, rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate. Demography, socio-economic challenges and structural economic change threaten the long-run sustainability of rural health care institutions.
Since 2010, almost 100 rural hospitals across the U.S. have closed and some analysts predict many more hospitals nationally will close or merge with larger health care systems. Ironically, Republican-dominated states like Utah that resist Medicaid expansion have experienced the greatest number of closures. This raises a question: What’s different about Utah, where no rural hospitals have yet been forced to close?
First, closures force rural patients to travel longer distances to access care, and longer distances mean life-threatening implications in an emergency.