; (2) nearly 60 percent of areas designated as primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas (commonly referred to as HPSAs ) are rural and more than 3,000 physicians would be needed to remove these designations; (3) rural areas of the United States have fewer than half as many primary care physicians per 100,000 people as urban areas of the United States; and (4) more than 50 percent of patients in rural areas of the United States travel at least 20 miles to receive specialty medical care, compared to only 6 percent of patients in urban areas of the United States; Whereas rural hospitals and other providers are facing a growing closure crisis as— (1) 82 rural hospitals have closed since 2010 and 673 rural hospitals are in severe financial crisis, representing one-third of the rural hospitals in the United States; (2) because of the closure of these 82 rural hospitals, 99,000 health care jobs have been lost and 137,000 community jobs have been lost; (3) at this rate, 25 percent of rural hospitals will have shut down in the next ten years; and (4) medical deserts are being created across rural America, leaving many of our Nation’s most vulnerable populations without timely access to care; Whereas because rural hospitals and other providers face unique challenges in administering care to patients, Congress has traditionally supported those providers by implementing— (1) specific programs to address rural hospital closures that occurred in the 1980s by providing financial support to hospitals that are geographically isolated and in which Medicare patients make up a significant percentage of hospital inpatient days or discharges; and (2) a program established in 1997 to support limited-service hospitals that, being located in rural areas of the United States that cannot support a full-service hospital, are critical access points to health care for rural patients