The US is freakishly large. I've lived all over it and driven across it from west to east several times. I grew up 2 hours outside of Appalachia, and couple th

The US is freakishly large. I've lived all over it and driven across it from west to east several times. I grew up 2 hours outside of Appalachia, and couple that with the other places I've seen I feel safe in my belief that the US has large swaths of sparsely populated regions. Here's some fun maps if you don't believe me: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/l4zr10/red_areas_in_map_are_a_bit_over_1_of_us_land_area/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/l4zr10/red_areas_i... If you don't like reddit, feel free to reference this night map: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/geo/population-distribution-2020.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/geo/popul... It's no surprise that these hospitals are at risk of closing. There are few people there and fewer new people coming in, causing the cost of labor to explode. For example, there's a shortage of new blood entering the workforce compared to retiring boomers: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2... This leads to labor shortages especially in rural areas because the few young people are fleeing to urban environments to find work and a not-shrinking economy a la Japan & Tokyo. Here's a document referring specifically to some east coast regions, but there is likely one for your local region out there somewhere: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2020/q1/district_digest https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus... Here's a document on Japan and Tokyo's situation: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/business/japan-pay-families-relocate-tokyo-intl-hnk/index.html#:~:text=But%20this%20migration,a%20national%20census https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/business/japan-pay-families-r.... It sucks that these hospitals are closing but this is what the decline of a region looks like. The labor costs are only going to get worse as time goes on because if you want nice things you have to convince people to hang out there and make it nice. The growing costs of labor will shut down hospitals and prevent the opening of new ones. It was easy to justify the construction of such things when the population of the USA almost doubled between 1970 and today. Now? Not so much: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/POPTOTUSA647NWDB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/POPTOTUSA647NWDB Widespread immigration into these areas would help alleviate these issues, as would policy decisions that favor the industries that used to exist in them that drew people there in the first place.