Political Quotes

“Senator Durbin and I have worked for months on an issue on rural healthcare. Whether it is in rural Illinois or it is in rural Oklahoma, there is a challenge dealing with rural hospitals and sustaining their viability. So Senator Durbin and I partnered together to determine what is the best way to get a solution that is a long-term solution to what they are currently facing with COVID-19. While COVID-19 has impacted all types of businesses, rural hospitals have uniquely dealt with some very difficult challenges. Getting PPE early on in the process was much more challenging for rural hospitals than it was for urban--keeping doctors, managing separation, getting airflow areas in hospitals to manage the flow of the virus through areas, and also managing just patient count, where, for many rural hospitals, they just shut down because all elective surgery was stopped and such, and so they lost all of that income, though they still had all the employees. It was an exceptionally challenging thing, but it is challenging on top of the challenge that they have already faced for decades in just surviving in rural America. So what Senator Durbin and I have brought is a reasonable, nonpartisan solution to how we can deal with not only COVID-19 but to help rural hospitals long term.…”