Alarmed by the closure of a rural hospital earlier this year, California lawmakers on Thursday voted to loan $150 million to struggling medical centers in the hope of preventing a cascade of similar failures across the state.
The only hospital in Madera County closed in December, leaving the community of nearly 160,000 people with no medical center within a 30-minute drive. The closure was a startling reminder of the plight of many community hospitals in mostly rural areas of the country that have struggled to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic.
