Healthcare becomes Democrats’ strongest midterms message in rural Iowa

Shannon Gooden, a 56-year-old receptionist at River Hills Community Health Center in Centerville, has voted Republican her entire life and backed Donald Trump three times. Now the clinic where she works is set to close on July 31, and Gooden says the loss has forced a harder question of the party she trusted. “I was raised a Republican, and I’ve always voted Republican, but it’s gotten to the point now, more what are you going to do for us?” she said. “Something needs to change.”

Centerville sits about two hours south of Des Moines in Appanoose County, and the River Hills site at 1015 N 18th St., Suite C, has served as a local stop for medical, dental, women’s health, pediatric and other services. A flyer supporting efforts to save the clinic was taped to a downtown storefront on June 24, a visible sign of how the closure has become part of daily life in town.

River Hills announced on May 12 that the Centerville clinic would close, citing financial and operational pressures that include workforce shortages, rising costs, reimbursement challenges and long-term sustainability problems. The same date will bring the closure of the Richland Dental Clinic in Keokuk County, at 100 W Main St. Patients with records or appointments were told to contact the clinic, and records can be transferred to other locations.

River Hills is one of more than 1,500 federally qualified health centers nationwide and one of 14 in Iowa. Southeastern Iowa has already absorbed other cuts, including the closure of the MercyOne Ottumwa Family and Internal Medicine Clinic.

Democrats are campaigning against Republican-backed Medicaid cuts and rising healthcare costs. Iowa Democrats pointed to the River Hills closure as a rebuttal to Ashley Hinson’s first Senate campaign ad focused on lowering healthcare costs, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has used the same closure to attack Zach Nunn after his vote for Medicaid cuts.