Prior to the onset of COVID-19, there was in the United States an epidemic of hospitals getting sick and dying. Between January, 2013 and February, 2020, the plug was pulled on 101 rural hospitals. The GAO (General Accounting Office) December, 2020 report, “Rural Hospital Closures,” studied the effect such clever financial moves had upon the ability of residents of rural America to get medical care. For average inpatient services, the median distance increased from 3.4 miles to 23.9 miles; for an emergency room, from 3.3 to 24.2 miles; for coronary care units, 4.5 to 35.1 miles; and for alcohol or drug abuse treatment, from 5.5 to 44.6 miles. The trips were seven to eight times longer! And it was also harder to find a physician, as the number of them dropped from 71.2 per 100,000 residents to 59.7.
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