This is not really an accurate depiction of why rural clinics are closing. It doesn’t have much to do with Obamacare.

The biggest challenge these clinics are facing is a labor shortage. Clinics need skilled workers — doctors and nurses — but very few healthcare workers are willing to move into rural areas. Since the schools in rural areas have lagged behind their urban counterparts for decades, there’s also a shortage of healthcare talent coming straight from these communities. The few healthcare workers that do come from rural areas tend to migrate to urban areas for a variety of reasons. This means that rural clinics, if they can find anyone to work there, are forced to pay more for their workers.

There’s a lot more to this issue. Clinics are also combatting declining rural populations, constrained local resources, and trying to figure out how to adopt to 21st century patient care, but the labor shortage truly is the biggest challenge in rural healthcare right now. Obamacare has little to do with it.