“We’re bankrupting a lot of hospitals by forcing these hospitals to provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country.”
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) during a Sept. 17 rally
During a recent presidential campaign rally in Wisconsin, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was asked how a Trump administration would protect rural health care access in the face of hospital closures, such as two this year in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.
In response, he turned to immigration.
“Now, you might not think that rural health care access is an immigration issue,” said Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate. “I guarantee it is an immigration issue, because we’re bankrupting a lot of hospitals by forcing these hospitals to provide care for people who don’t have the legal right to be in our country.”
More than 150 rural hospitals have closed or eliminated inpatient services since 2010, researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill reported. Losing a hospital can resonate throughout a community — reducing access to timely care and disrupting the local economy.
The federal government has made efforts to keep the far-flung facilities afloat, but it’s not been an easy problem to solve.
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What Is Plaguing Rural Hospitals?
Experts said Vance’s statement implies that immigrants who are in the country illegally strain the resources of these hospitals, which often operate on thin margins, by taking time and energy away from other patients without paying their bills.
We contacted both Vance and Trump campaign staff members for additional information. They did not respond.
Experts on hospital financing and industry representatives generally disagreed with Vance’s assertion, noting that many other factors figure in closures.
“When we speak with our rural hospital members, that is not what we hear,” said Shannon Wu, director of payment policy at the American Hospital Association, a trade group of more than 5,000 hospitals around the country.
Brock Slabach, chief operating officer of the National Rural Health Association, said border state hospitals face challenges treating immigrants who are in the country illegally. “But I’ve never, in my discussions, had anyone link it directly to a hospital closure,” he said.
The specific situations that lead a rural hospital to close its doors are unique to each facility, researchers said, but many face some of the same stressors.
Rural hospitals tend to have low patient volumes, which presents its …