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| Economy |
| A Hospital Crisis Is Killing Rural Communities. This State Is ‘Ground Zero.' |
| 2017-09-25 |
| [Huffpoo] GLENWOOD, Ga. ― If you want to watch a rural community die, kill its hospital. After the Lower Oconee Community Hospital shut down in June 2014, other mainstays of the community followed. The bank and the pharmacy in the small town of Glenwood shuttered. Then the only grocery store in all of Wheeler County closed in the middle of August this year. On Glenwood’s main street, building after building is now for sale, closing, falling apart or infested with weeds growing through the foundation’s cracks. Opportunity has been dying in Wheeler County for the last 20 years. Agriculture was once the primary employer, but the Wheeler Correctional Facility, a privately run prison, is now the biggest source of jobs. With 39 percent of the central Georgia county’s population living in poverty, there aren’t enough patients with good insurance to keep a hospital from losing money. The hospital’s closure eliminated the county’s biggest health care provider and dispatched yet another major employer. Glenwood’s mayor of 34 years, G.M. Joiner, doubts that the town will ever recover. "It’s been devastating," the 72-year-old mayor said, leaning on one of the counters in Glenwood’s one-room city hall. "I tell folks that move here, ’This is a beautiful place to live, but you better have brought money, because you can’t make any here.’" |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #11 Newest daughter comes from a small town in the wilds of rural Indiana. The small jewel of a local hospital was and continues to be the gift of the richest family in town. As far as I can tell, the locals are otherwise farmers, shop clerks, and Amazon workers. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-09-25 22:00 |
| #10 school consolidation is another disaster for a small town. Posted by bman Big gov't, big schools, big medical facilities.... same concept. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-09-25 17:50 |
| #9 school consolidation is another disaster for a small town. |
| Posted by: bman 2017-09-25 17:46 |
| #8 but the interesting thing about the trip was that it took you through the underside of dozens of small towns with scores of closed down businesses and factories. Drive the track paths thru rural TX. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-09-25 15:19 |
| #7 Government always ignores small business(look what O did to small communities alone stopping coal production). Build a bypass and the mom and pops die off. Happens every time. The only choice for them is to relocate nearer the traffic flow. Most don't have the money to invest in such an enterprise. No assistance. No buyout. Before Rt95, before 495, before 695, before Rt.70 or Rt 68 and then 270. I remember when 270 was built mechanics road tested cars because there was no traffic. Dulles was a white elephant. So all the old roads were less traveled. Then the small business died off. Now with influx of so many things begin to renew. When they do away with personnel vehicle transportation the Government doesn't care who is displaced. Yes, Uber is just the beginning. The freedom to come and go as you please will soon be ending. |
| Posted by: Dale 2017-09-25 11:15 |
| #6 Since 2010, 82 rural hospitals have closed nationwide. As many as 700 more are at risk of closing within the next 10 years, according to Alan Morgan, the CEO of the National Rural Health Association, a nonprofit professional organization that lobbies on rural health issues. Never mention the true underlying issue. Bumblecare was designed to destroy rural American healthcare |
| Posted by: Beavis 2017-09-25 11:04 |
| #5 I'll tell ya what, there is no significant available graft or pieces of the action for non Han in the current arrangement. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2017-09-25 08:54 |
| #4 As someone else said .... where's the graft in that? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-09-25 08:29 |
| #3 Whilst AMTRAC line from Manassass to Atlanta does not go through Detroit, still a good point clem. The term 'foreign import trade imbalance' should have been used. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-09-25 08:02 |
| #2 I won't go so far as to say that "Chinese imports" are the problem in rural America. Chinese imports did not ruin Detroit. Detroit ruined Detroit (auto industry metaphor). At all levels of government, we are our worst enemy. |
| Posted by: Clem 2017-09-25 07:54 |
| #1 But it's not just the hospitals, it's all businesses and services. I have always loved trains. While I was working in D.C. years ago, I drove out to Manassas, VA and took the AMTRAC to Atlanta. It was a very slow train the stopped often, but the interesting thing about the trip was that it took you through the underside of dozens of small towns with scores of closed down businesses and factories. The trip's final destination was the crowded circa 1918 train station in Atlanta, which was, perhaps by design, miles from any MARTA stop. Every politician in Washington should be required to make this trip and view what the gov't has permitted Chinese imports to do to this country. The 'urbanization of America' into large, gov't dependent voting blocks is nearly complete. Small town doctors and clinics are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They have been replaced by huge medical complexes more suited to the implementation of gov't medicine, exploitation by big pharma and the insurance companies. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-09-25 04:59 |