Limited hospital access disproportionately harms people incarcerated in rural areas, Minnesota Post

Minnesota Post, November 2025

Nearly 783,200 of the total 1.3 million people who are incarcerated in this country are locked up in rural counties, areas that are more likely to face hospital closures, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization working to expose the harm of mass incarceration. 

The Trump administration’s changes to Medicaid in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill will make it harder for rural hospitals to stay financially afloat. For those in rural jails and prisons, the closure of rural hospitals is likely to worsen mortality rates.

Incarcerated people already face higher mortality rates than the general population, due in part to lack of access to basic medical care. Since 2010, there have been three civil rights cases about insufficient healthcare in prisons and jails in Virginia alone.