Latta: Rural America’s Hospitals & Providers Need Relief

Latta leads bipartisan letter to HHS to request funds granted to hospitals through the CARES Act are appropriately allocated to rural hospitals and providers

BOWLING GREEN, OH – This week, Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) led a bipartisan letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to request that the increased funding for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund through the CARES Act is equitably distributed to small rural hospitals, critical access hospitals and other rural providers who are in grave need of help as they combat the coronavirus pandemic.

About one third of all hospitals in our country are rural hospitals and before the coronavirus pandemic hit, almost half of all rural hospitals were in the middle of a closure crisis. Rural hospitals and providers are critically important because they provide needed care and services to people in an accessible way. 20 percent of our population live in rural communities but only nine percent of physicians practice in rural communities. Increasing funding for rural hospitals and providers ensures more people can receive critical emergency and primary care services without having to travel to urban or suburban areas.

The full letter can be found here: https://latta.house.gov/uploadedfiles/covid-19-rural-formula-letter-april_102020.pdf