In rural areas of the U.S., a women’s health crisis is beginning to boil over.
A recent statement from the Augusta Medical Group in Virginia asserts that enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has resulted in several of its clinics closing throughout a significant stretch of the Appalachian Mountains – an “ongoing response to … the resulting realities for healthcare delivery,” as they termed it.
The loss of Medicaid funding, expected to amount to $900 billion in all over the next decade, combined with a pending crisis of uninsured Americans once the bill’s work requirements for coverage go into effect, is a problem for people living in rural parts of the nation in particular. “You can expect those places to be impacted by now having people who don’t even have Medicaid,” Tim Layton, an associate professor of public policy and economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy of the University of Virginia, said to CNN. “With fewer people to spread fixed costs across, it becomes harder and harder [for clinics] to stay open.”
Marshall Cohen, a Democratic strategist at the political firm KMM Strategies, added: “Rural hospitals are closing, at the end of the day. We’re seeing the tip of the iceberg here in Virginia, and it’s a sign of what’s to come” throughout the country.
Democrats had warned about this problem ahead of the law’s passage, noting that rural healthcare facilities had already been suffering before the bill was adopted. The letter of dissent also pointed out the jobs crises that result from closing these facilities down, as such hospitals provide a significant amount of work for rural Americans.
And though the bill included a $50 billion fund for rural clinics, states must first apply for relief, and the need is such that the money “will go pretty quick,” Layton said.
Some are trying to quell the rising problem through non-legislative avenues. At the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, doulas are being trained to work with pregnant people in the afflicted regions. “We’re developing a workforce that’s going to be out there, providing the support that Black women and birthing people need,” Natalie Hernandez-Green, the school’s executive director, said.
Angel Foster of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project – which assists thousands of patients per month by prescribing and sending abortion pills primarily to U.S. states where abortion is banned or restricted – added to us that attacking the problem from a variety of directions will yield the best results for those in need.
No matter what, she said, it’s important that Americans “do not comply in advance” to circumstances that would see rural women’s health – or anyone’s health – further compromised. Rather, we must “push back on all kinds of things.”
Note: This article has been updated to correct Layton’s work. He was previously cited as an associate law professor.