LETTER: Rural medical care lacking overall
Kudos to the Observer-Reporter editorial board for pointing out the problem of inadequate maternity care in rural areas. However, reporting the need for more maternity care should have put been in the context of an overall picture of inadequate medical coverage in rural areas. There also needed to be a clearer explanation of possible solutions.
The dearth of maternity centers is just a specific example of an overall scenario of inadequate medical access in rural areas. Rural hospitals don’t have the resources and are closing, producing problems in accessing medical coverage. Compounding the problem of medical access is the problem of medical need. Rural America is sicker than urban America, because it is older, poorer, and less educated, all of which predict more negative health outcomes. Of course, using the nomenclature rural and urban America is just another way of framing the partisan divide of Red and Blue America. Research has shown that prior to the pandemic, red counties were sicker and had higher mortality rates than blue counties. The health and mortality divide increased further during the pandemic. Furthermore, red areas are far more likely to be afflicted by “diseases of despair” and “deaths of despair.” Diseases of despair are “behavior-related medical conditions that increase in groups of people who experience despair due to a sense that their long-term social and economic status is bleak.” Deaths of despair are the resulting deaths from acute substance overdose, deaths from chronic addiction-related organ failure, and suicide. These have increased significantly in red/rural areas.
The O-R editorial hints at possible solutions, but stated that gridlock at the federal level “makes it unlikely that any meaningful changes in federal policy are in offing that would help remedy this problem.” I believe that by reading between the lines, the wording should have been, “solutions promoted by Democrats in Congress would be blocked by the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.” Even the proposed solutions at the state level are largely, but not exclusively, Democratic actions. But here is the rub; the areas most in need of government services are the areas most likely to vote for a party (Republican) that is philosophically opposed to government having such a role. It appears that people are voting against their own self-interest on issues, with the result being less opportunity, more disease, and more death.
John Moretti
Claysville