Partner to help serve rural patients: Your Say

Letters to the editor:

I read, with great appreciation, the article on rural hospitals' demise under the Affordable Care Act "Rural hospitals in critical condition."

I live in Coos County, N.H., and so I'm on the front lines of rural health care and the challenges we face daily. I would like to point out that "federally qualified health centers," which treat all patients regardless of ability to pay, offer an incredible array of services to rural Americans whose communities qualify as truly isolated and vulnerable.

If rural hospitals were willing to give up some of their bureaucratic and controlling managerial tendencies, they could partner with the health centers in what would be an empowering model for providing high quality care to the most vulnerable citizens in this country. There is much to be explored here that is positive and encouraging, and therefore, perhaps not as headline grabbing.

Christine Charman; Colebrook, N.H.

I find it interesting that the Affordable Care Act is intimated as the main culprit in the failure of rural hospitals in USA TODAY's article.

The article only briefly mentions some previously salient points such as failure of states to expand Medicaid, profitability, greed, corporatization of health care and insurance profits to name a few.

As a health care professional for over 25 years, I have seen the bottom line become ever so paramount to those running the health care system.

Philip G. Sarge; Green Bay, Wis.