Editor’s Note: This story was originally published by The Beacon, a nonprofit news organization serving Missouri and Kansas. The Star is republishing up to two stories a week as part of a new partnership with The Beacon.
In southwest Missouri’s Barton County, people without health insurance find themselves in the emergency room for everything from routine care to mental health needs, often because there are few other options available.
“They use the emergency room as their health care provider,” said Joel Dermott, the administrator at the Barton County Health Department in Lamar. “And they use it for everything. It’s not for emergency health issues, it’s for any health issue.”…