WASHINGTON, D.C.—Two weeks after Belhaven Mayor Adam O’Neal, civil rights leader Bob Zellner, N.C. NAACP President William Barber II and representatives from over 20 states embarked on a 273-mile walk to Washington, D.C., a new bill to save rural hospitals is set to be announced by Congress in the coming weeks.

Days before O’Neal and the team advocating for rural healthcare arrived in Washington, D.C., O’Neal began getting calls, notifying him that the group was being heard in Washington (D.C.) and that Congress was looking toward addressing rural hospitals concerns through introduction of the Saving Rural Hospitals Act in the next seven to 10 days, he said.

According to O’Neal, around 40 states across the nation were represented between the walk and a rally held Monday in the capitol, advocating for rural healthcare. Several people spoke at the rally, including O’Neal, Barber, Zellner and various representatives from states across the nation.

“I’m very proud of the folks that came selflessly to walk for rural hospitals,” O’Neal said. “It was amazing. Across the country, a lot of these states have hospitals closing so they know how serious it is.”

O’Neal said the walk, which began on June 1 and ended on June 15 with the rally, was primarily to spark a national debate concerning the closing of 283 rural hospitals across the country. The hospital in Belhaven that closed on July 1 was one of around 50 that have already closed, most of which are in the southern part of the nation, according to O’Neal’s reference to National Rural Health Association statistics.

One of the group’s most important meetings took place in Virginia, en route to the capital, O’Neal said. There, O’Neal and company met with Jennifer Lee, the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in Virginia. At the meeting, a nonpartisan finance expert discussed Medicaid expansion based on a government report, citing the pros and cons of accepting the expansion. Based on the report, there were only a few cons to accepting Medicaid and the positive aspects of doing so would fix most of them, according to O’Neal.

Virginia, like North Carolina and 22 other states, declined to accept Medicaid after implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and as a result, small, rural hospitals in these states are closing, O’Neal said. Though O’Neal and Belhaven’s primary goal is to reopen its hospital, the walk to D.C. accomplished much for those advocating for rural healthcare in communities across the nation, O’Neal said.

“I hope what the walk has done is start a national debate about rural hospitals and make rural hospital survival a priority in our country, and I think we may have achieved that,” O’Neal said. “I think it’s amazing that our small town is not only working to save our (hospital), but to hopefully, have an impact on rural hospitals in the country.”