{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-we-must-improve-rural-health-care-access/", "Barrasso: We Must Improve Rural Health Care Access", "2024-05-17", "2024", "2024-05", "Republican", "Senate", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", "barrasso", "https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom/news-releases/", "scraper", "\u201cWhether you\u2019re a Republican or Democrat, you\u2019re from a state that has a lot of rural areas \u2013 you want to get doctors into those areas.\u201d\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 At a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) discussed health access challenges facing Wyoming with rural health experts.\n\nBarrasso specifically highlighted the need to invest in rural medical residency training programs, improve access to maternity services, and counteract the effects of rural hospital closures.\n\nKeith J. Mueller, Ph.D., Lori Rodefeld, Ms, Jeremy P. Davis, MHA, and Michael Topchik testified at Thursday\u2019s Senate Committee on Finance hearing on Rural Health Care: Supporting Lives and Improving Communities.\n\nOn Increasing Doctors in Rural Hospitals Through Training Programs\n\n\u201cIn Wyoming, our medical school works in partnership with the University of Washington, along with Montana, Alaska, and Idaho in the WWAMI program.\n\n\u201cWhat we\u2019ve found out is that giving students a rural experience and residents rural experience helps them recognize early in their career the benefits of working in rural clinics and hospitals, and hopefully then moving there and practicing there full time.\n\n\u201cI think it\u2019s encouraging, it\u2019s a great recruitment tool if they have that experience. Research shows residents are more than five times more likely to then go on and practice in a rural community if their residencies are in those types of communities.\n\n\u201cAnd I see Ms. Rodefeld, you agree and I\u2019m going to have a question for you soon about OBGYN care in some of these areas.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve introduced legislation called the Rural Physician Workforce Production Act to provide additional funds to rural hospitals that train residents.\n\n\u201cRight now, so much of the funding goes to the larger community \u2013 the large city hospitals \u2013 not the rural experience.\n\n\u201cThis is political, but it\u2019s bipartisan, because if you\u2019re a senator \u2013 whether you\u2019re a Republican or Democrat \u2013 you\u2019re from a state that has a lot of rural areas. You want to get doctors into those areas.\n\n\u201cSo how could a program like this, this model for training in rural areas, actually help training programs be more viable in those locations?\u201d\n\nClick here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks on increasing doctors in rural hospitals.\n\nOn Improving Access to Maternal Care in Rural Areas\n\n\u201cIn Wyoming, due to financial strains and workforce shortages, maternity services are closing \u2013 and you\u2019re an expert in this area.\n\n\u201cFive of our counties have lost maternity services entirely. Seven others have minimal access to care. And it\u2019s leaving only eleven of our twenty-three counties with adequate access to OB services.\n\n\u201cNow, just for reference, every single county in Wyoming is larger than the entire state of Delaware or the entire state of Rhode Island. Some of our counties are larger than Connecticut, larger than the state of New Jersey.\n\n\u201cCan you imagine if the entire state of Delaware or Rhode Island or New Jersey lost all of their OB services? You know it would be in the front page of every paper.\n\n\u201cSo what I would like to talk to you about \u2013 as the expert you are \u2013 is how we can address this crisis.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of health and economic viability for rural America. If you can\u2019t provide opportunities to deliver babies or to recruit teachers, people in small businesses, all of those things.\n\n\u201cYou really were successful, I thought, in Wisconsin in crafting that residency program to be a tool to addressing rural access.\n\n\u201cSo on the federal level can we mirror the access and the success that you\u2019ve had?\u201d\n\nClick here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks on improving access to maternal care.\n\nOn Counteracting Rural Hospital Closures\n\n\u201cI\u2019m there in the community a lot as rural hospitals and clinics across the country are closing at a higher rate than urban hospitals. Patients are forced to travel greater distances.\n\n\u201cI think that telehealth has helped, but how else can we strengthen rural care so patients are not forced to drive hours for care?\n\nClick here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks on counteracting rural hospital closures.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:12:30Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-we-must-improve-rural-health-care-access/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7632658816874027, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}