Please join the Bipartisan Policy Center in Des Moines for an important event with Sen. Chuck Grassley about the barriers that rural Iowans face in securing quality health care. Following the senator's remarks, a panel of local health care experts will discuss the shortage of physicians and clinicians in rural areas and the promise of telehealth and what it means for patients to have virtual visits with a doctor, nurse, or other clinicians.

Since January 2010, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed throughout the United States, and an additional 647 are at risk of folding, including 17 hospitals in Iowa. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the 60 million Americans living in rural areas are at a greater risk of dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory disease than those living in urban and suburban areas.

This event will help inform BPC’s Rural Health Task Force, which is developing policy solutions to rural America’s health care challenges, including rightsizing health care services that better fit a community’s needs, creating appropriate payment models for services, strengthening the rural workforce, and expanding telemedicine services. The task force is co-chaired by former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, former Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.