The caucus will highlight potential policy solutions, including “stemming hospital closures, ensuring fair and adequate reimbursement rates, strengthening the health workforce, reducing health inequities and expanding telehealth and other innovative care delivery models.”
Rural hospitals
Rural hospitals were already closing at a rapid rate before the pandemic — more than 150 closed between 2005 and 2019, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Without the federal money to prop them up, the Center estimates that 200 rural hospitals across the country are at risk of closing within the next two to three years.