Medicaid reimbursement rates tend to be lower than the cost to treat in many instances. Only preserving Medicaid funding will not prevent hospital closures. We

Medicaid reimbursement rates tend to be lower than the cost to treat in many instances. Only preserving Medicaid funding will not prevent hospital closures. We already know that with or without Medicaid, rural hospitals continue to close. The only difference is the speed at which they do. The question was about some universal system preventing rural deaths. If the coverage difference is only 1-2%, then coverage doesn't seem to be the driver. If it's a provider and facility shortage, then we would need some strategy to address the provider shortage, even if we assume we can fix the facility issue by providing higher reimbursement rates or grants.