Small Towns
Health care in rural communities has many aspects – access to physicians, dentists, nurses, and mental health services; the financial circumstances of rural hospitals; federal rules concerning Medicare reimbursement rates and the impact on rural hospitals and healthcare professionals; and the consequences of all of these on the health of rural people.
While each aspect is important, this brief will focus instead on issues related to health insurance coverage, health care costs of rural people, and solutions to reform the health care system.