Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Rep. Hagedorn tells voters government-funded health care will close rural hospitals. Hagedorn presents this as a proven fact and a reason to abolish the Affordable Care Act. But, Mr. Hagedorn often gets his facts wrong, and there are multiple academic studies showing Hagedorn is wrong. Rural hospitals have lower operating margins, and more of their patients are uninsured compared to urban hospitals. This means rural hospitals must provide more uncompensated care. The expansion of government insurance in the form of Medicare helped solve this problem. That is why states that expanded Medicare under the ACA, like Minnesota, had less hospital closings than states that refused expansion. This is proven fact. Mr. Hagedorn should be aware of this. But I suspect he simply repeats what his party tells him without checking for himself. We need better representation; we need Dan Feehan.

Debra Hogenson

Waseca