The new health care law passed in March 2010 could change that pattern, Knudson and Francis agreed. “With healthcare reform, if people in rural areas were to get the care that they need earlier on with improved access, maybe we would see normalization of the discrepancies” between rural and urban residents, Francis said.

“We know that good primary care is really important,” Knudson said, in terms of preventing the need for some surgeries later in life. “But good primary care needs to start when somebody is younger. It isn’t as effective when it starts at 65.”

SOURCE: Archives of Surgery, online January 17, 2011.