New tax law may put squeeze on rural hospitals

One of the selling points for the tax bill President Trump signed into law a few weeks ago is that it will spur job growth because corporations will use money they otherwise would have paid in taxes to hire more workers. But for rural areas and small towns, one provision of the new law may result in the closure of one of their biggest employers – their hospital.

Rural hospitals in general operate on much thinner margins than most big city hospitals, margins so thin that dozens have been forced to close in recent years. In fact, almost all the U.S. hospitals that have been shuttered in recent y...