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by positron6000 1122 days ago
Based on the data here (which your source is based on) four out of the five rural hospital closures in NY are in counties that voted for Trump in 2016:

Irving, NY - Chautauqua County - Trump

Fulton, NY - Oswego County - Trump

Ticonderoga, NY - Essex County - Clinton

Amsterdam, NY - Montgomery County - Trump

Sidney, NY - Delaware County - Trump

- https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-heal...

- https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president

Voting against Medicare or Obamacare aren't the only ways to vote against healthcare reform, as OP states:

> Politics matters. Voters in rural areas (generally, of course) have consistently voted against policies that would help support health care in these rural locations

1 comments

You’re begging the question. 90% of rural counties voted for Trump. The phrase “rural hospitals” is pretty much synonymous with “hospitals in counties that voted for Trump. That doesn’t prove that the policies people voted for caused the problems with rural hospitals.

Healthcare is handled at the federal and state levels, not the county level. Thus, rural areas in blue states like New York should be doing better than ones in red states like Florida. They all voted against these policies that supposedly would have helped them—but in Florida they were successful in opposing them while in New York they were overruled by urban areas and got those policies anyway.

You really think counties have zero influence whatsoever (note I didn’t say formal role) in issuing certificates of need?