CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Sen. Mark Warner was in Franklin to meet with community members and leaders near Southampton Medical Center, one of Virginia’s six rural hospitals facing the risk of closure, over the Labor Day weekend.

“This community is about to get hit by a tsunami of change,” he said. “A number of people are going to lose their health care; a number of people are going to lose basic food assistance.”

According to the American Hospital Association, half of America’s rural hospitals are already operating at a financial loss and depend largely on dollars from Medicaid, which covers more than 37 percent of rural children and nearly half of rural births.

Warner says people who have private health insurance and think cutbacks that affect rural hospitals will not affect them may be surprised if facilities like Southampton Medical Center have to close.

“If you suddenly have three or four or 500,000 more people showing up at the emergency room, that’s going to drive up private health care costs, as well,” he said. “These are all connected.”

More than 300 rural hospitals dot the American landscape.