The ominous statistics about the state of rural health care in Alabama hung like a storm cloud as voters in one southwestern Alabama county headed to the polls on Tuesday.

More than t wo dozen hospitals across the state are at risk of closing , crippled by chronic funding shortages and the nation’s lowest reimbursement rates. Nineteen face “immediate” danger, and seven have already shut their doors since 2011. Just last month, Greenville’s Regional Medical Center of Central Alabama ended inpatient care and cut 90 jobs.

A majority of voters in deep red Escambia County, a county that backed President Donald Trump with 73% of the vote last November, decided they didn’t want to join the list. In a special election with slightly fewer than 3,000 ballots cast, residents approved a 4-mil p

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