Obamacare promises, 2009, vs. reality today: quite a difference!

Five years ago, as part of the huge propaganda blitz to generate support for Obamacare before the bill was rammed through congress, Team Obama claimed the ACA would have many specific and marvelous effects.  Among these was to:

Protect Access to Care in Rural Communities:

• [the act will ensure] that hospitals and other providers in rural and remote communities receive the reimbursement they need to offer quality care to patients and keep their doors open.

• [tbe act will ensure] that rural health care providers receive appropriate Medicare reimbursements to address longstanding inequities that exist among providers from different geographic regions. 
• [the act will help] the many small and rural communities where patients must travel long distances between health care providers to receive medical care.

Fast-forward to three days ago: USA Today tells us what actually happened:

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state's closed hospitals served about 10,000 people.

Rural hospitals are closing because Team Obama took a roughly $500 billion dollars out of Medicare and used it to partially fund Obamacare.  The de-funding deprived hospitals of cash they desperately needed to keep operating.

But no big deal.  What difference does it make if stupid rural voters have to drive an extra hundred miles or so to reach treatment for a stroke or heart attack?  It's not like they're important people, like economists from a prestigious university (that would be Jonathan Gruber, who gave Team Obama the blueprint for how to game the scoring to make Obamacare look economically feasible.)

Besides, rural folks--especially in "flyover country"--typically vote Republican anyway, so closing their hospitals is simply payback.  Sort of like "reparations."

Yeh, dat's it.  Next time they'll think twice before voting Republican if they know what's good for 'em, eh?