Bullet dodged for rural Ohio: Hospital closed, but thankfully reopened

Last week, close watchers of the Ohio health care space had a minor heart attack when health care industry publication Becker’s published a list of rural hospital closures and Hicksville, Ohio-based Community Memorial Hospital popped up on the list.

Yikes! Community Memorial serves a red and rural area, and is a 340B provider which means it gets to buy drugs from Big Pharma companies at a discount and then either pass the discount on to patients or sell richer patients the drugs acquired at normal price, and use the money banked to keep paying nurses and doctors and fun stuff like that.

Generally, though not always, 340B provider status is an indicator that a provider is right on the financial edge, and serving patients who are far from rich and oftentimes straight up indigent. So, we were glad to hear that Community Memorial closed, but then reopened.

However, this entire subject puts front of mind something going on in Congress that basically no one is paying attention to, apart from the Beckers of the world. In the Senate, a “Gang” of six senators is working away at legislation to overhaul/modernize/reform (choose your preferred good-sounding verb) 340B, and rumor is that at least one of the senators involved has been more than a tad happy to have very friendly chats with Big Pharma, which hates the program, about exactly what sort of “overhauling,” “modernization,” and/or “reforming” they would like to see.

This is one of those things that we hope, as demanding as the campaign trail may be for JD Vance, he is paying attention to.

We have deliberately avoided getting into an hour-by-hour play-by-play on the “Haitians eating cats in Springfield” nonsense. First of all, there’s been plenty of debunking. But second of all, we actually have some sympathy for people in Springfield, who pretty manifestly have not been having a good time of it in recent years.

Now, that is not the Haitians’ fault– and it seems the Haitians are actually contributing meaningfully to the community.

But the whole story is, as Vance inartfully tried reminding cable news, a reminder that a lot of America has forgotten about Springfield, specifically, other Ohio communities like it, and other communities across America more broadly.

Those are the kind of communities that hospitals like Community Memorial serves, and we should want to avoid more closures. According to government statistics, there are actually 4616 340B entities in Ohio. So, if Congress goes messing around with 340B, chances are, people like those in Springfield who have been having a rough time of it are going to find things get much tougher.

Perhaps Vance can keep one eye on what his Senate colleagues are up to while getting himself in constant hot water for suggesting he’ll just make up stories to advance his narrative, that Trump said X or Y on abortion (only for Trump to say he hasn’t discussed the issue with Vance), or weighing in on Trump’s nonexistent “concepts of a [health care] plan” situation. He’s a super-talented guy, and one who seems to be capable of multi-tasking, after all!

Vance is right that communities like this have been left behind and need attention and help. This particular bullet dodged is a reminder of it.