In a letter this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Bacerra and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff pleaded with the Biden administration officials to make their agencies’ “complete support” available to help reopen the Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center in Cuthbert. The medical center closed during the middle of the pandemic due to financial problems, the latest of nine rural hospitals to close over the last decade.
“I urge you to make every Federal resource swiftly available to reopen this hospital facility, including Federal funding to address the hospital’s infrastructure needs. I would ask that you work personally with me, my staff, Mayor Whatley, and the Cuthbert and surrounding communities to see it through,” said Senator Ossoff.
Patients in Cuthbert must drive more than an hour away for medical care. Ossoff visited Cuthbert during his campaign and pledged to work to reopen the hospital. Ossoff frequently points to the state’s failure to expand Medicaid as part of the financial problems for rural hospitals, something state Republicans have largely remained united against, citing the financial cost to taxpayers.
Standing in front of fellow Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, Ossoff relayed a story about a woman in Cuthbert whose brother had to be rushed to a hospital in Columbus, and then had to drive there three days a week to continue his care.
Ossoff has repeatedly raised the rural healthcare issue during his short time in the Senate so far, requesting a Biden budget nominee to fund and support rural hospitals and raising the issue during a Banking Committee hearing in the Spring.
The discrepancy highlights one of the unique issues of having opposing parties hold federal and state office. Ossoff undoubtedly lobbies on behalf of many issues Gov. Brian Kemp and the state legislature are in favor of but complaints about Medicaid expansion largely fall on deaf ears at the State Capitol in Atlanta. With primary season coming up shortly and a contentious House and Senate election coming next Fall, Republicans at the capitol are very unlikely to give in to Democrats’ demands on Medicaid policy. A push from Washington could possibly make a difference but given the stalemate on most things seen so far during the Biden administration, that is unlikely as well.
In the meantime, more rural hospital closures may be featured in political campaigns next Fall.
