Two state legislative committees are taking on problems of health care in Georgia, and neither has to do, at least not directly, with the high-profile national debates on the subject.

As described by columnist Charlie Harper elsewhere on this page, and reported in considerable detail over the past few years, there’s a health care crisis in rural Georgia, and it’s getting worse with each passing year. Small rural hospitals are endangered, and their numbers are shrinking toward extinction. That means rural Georgia’s largely poor and often indigent population is left with limited — at best — access even to emergency care, much less maintenance care.

Read more at the Ledger-Inquirer.