Rural issues have always been important to my family and me. I grew up on a dairy farm in southeastern Pennsylvania and I have seen firsthand the contributions people who live in rural areas make to our country. While they do not work the most glamorous jobs, the farmers and ranchers in every state are the proud backbone of the country and work very hard to ensure that there is food on the table for their fellow Americans. I have proudly been a member of the Grange for my entire life and I now have the privilege of representing rural America as the National President of the Grange.
For 150 years, the National Grange has worked to help solve the problems that our members face in their local communities – making sure that rural America has access to education, healthcare and infrastructure that is found in urban areas and championing civic participation, energy independence and trade policy that supports rural agriculture. As the new Congress looks to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, our job is to ensure the debate includes the current challenges around access to healthcare in rural communities and any new policy ensures we are taking steps toward solving these issues not making them worse.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare” could severely damage the principal healthcare institutions of many rural communities — the local hospitals.
But there is a way to repeal the law that will not further endanger our local healthcare institutions. When Obamacare was passed in 2009, the federal government significantly cut Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals in favor of funding insurance coverage for uninsured patients. Should Congress proceed with repeal of the ACA, we must ensure the legislation includes the restoration of these reimbursements.
Rural Americans are statistically older and more likely to be a part of the nearly 50 million Medicare beneficiaries, making Medicare, and also Medicaid, functionality and preservation essential for rural residents.
In recent years, many community hospitals have had to shut down and many others have had to limit the services they offer to stay afloat. This problem will be exacerbated should the repeal of the Affordable Care Act not allow for the proper funding of hospitals through Medicare and Medicaid programs. According to an analysis by healthcare economics firm Dobson DaVanzo, if legislation for repeal is passed without restoring the $400 billion in hospital cuts, it would result in the largest Medicare cut to hospitals in history.
A loss of this magnitude will have an immense impact in small, rural communities throughout the country, including the towns and communities of thousands of members of the National Grange, as nearly one-third of rural hospitals are already at risk of closure. The hospitals in these communities rely heavily on Medicare and Medicaid payments and they will be the first to close or cut back their services. These programs are the safety net for so many Americans and it will be devastating if they are not supported.
It is estimated that over 11 million patients in rural areas, representing a fifth of the rural population, will lose direct access to care if our community hospitals are not protected. This will not only have a large impact on the economy in these areas, but will ripple out to the rest of the country. Agricultural businesses may not be able to provide the rest of the country with the food to sustain everyone.
As our health priorities state, the National Grange believes that access to affordable healthcare should never depend on a person’s geographic location. We ask that Congress work to ensure that rural America has the same level of healthcare coverage and services available to its urban counterparts. This is why restoring the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals should be the top priority for Congress as it moves forward with healthcare reform. That is the only way that we, as a nation, can keep our local hospitals operational and able to serve their communities.
Betsy Huber is the president of the National Grange. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
