Standing in the Gap: The Splintering of American Healthcare and the Heroes Helping Their Neighbors

This is the story of how a perfect storm of policy failure, economic pressure, and political chaos is creating "health deserts," and breaking healthcare for all of us. It's a story about what happens when the system we rely on for survival leaves us behind.

The Problem: 80% of U.S. counties are now considered healthcare deserts, impacting over 120 million Americans (KFF)

• 35% of counties in the U.S. are classified as maternal health deserts, meaning they lack access to hospitals or birth centers providing obstetric care. These areas are home to over 2.3 million women of reproductive age and suffer from a lack of obstetric providers, leading to higher risks for mothers and babies. (March of Dimes)
• 1.7 million women live in "double deserts," with no local access to either maternity care or abortion services. (March of Dimes)
• 19 million women live in "contraceptive deserts," lacking access to a full range of birth control. (PTD)

• Socioeconomic Collapse: Health deserts are concentrated in areas with high poverty, low insurance rates, and chronic underinvestment. Over 90% of patients in desert clinics are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. (GoodRx)
• The Economic Death Spiral: Rural hospitals, where 50% of births are covered by low-reimbursement Medicaid, are financially unsustainable. When a maternity ward closes, the entire hospital—often the largest employer in town—is at risk of collapse. This isn't a healthcare issue; it's an economic extinction event for American towns. (NIH, KFF)

The Solution: The Storytelling Engine

• We will produce a series of short, powerful documentary films (90-120 seconds), each telling a story of the Splintering, and the helpful heroes. Each film will be packaged and targeted for two key audiences:
  • "Sarah" (The Suburban Mom): Reached on Instagram & TikTok with emotional, character-driven stories that answer the question: "Is the system I trust for my family becoming unreliable?"
  • "Mark" (The Rural Business Owner): Reached on Facebook & YouTube with credible, pragmatic stories focused on community impact that answer the question: "Will my local hospital be there when I need it?"

The Purpose: Our Goal

• Click-to-Donate: A direct link to support the organizations stepping into the gap
• Resources: Free and low-cost healthcare resource guides
• Click-to-Register: A direct link to register to vote
• Targeted Share: Prompt a user to share the video with someone who cares about healthcare

The Characters: Voices from the Front Line

• The Second Victim | Rural OB-GYN: "People talk about burnout. I talk about moral injury. It’s knowing what the right thing to do is, but not having the resources... or being afraid you'll go to jail. We have high rates of guilt. People leave the profession and kill themselves over second victim issues."
• The System Analyst | Policy Expert:"The fact that Medicaid pays less than private insurance is a form of structural racism... we're entrenching inequities there."
• The Consistent Storyteller | Rural Doula: "We are the consistent storytellers... we're following up to see how are you feeling emotionally, physically? This is normal, this is not normal. Our maternal mortality rate... it works. So we've been proposing solutions... could we train doulas to be like a satellite care center?"
• The Last Five Miles | Rural Pharmacist: "We're 45 miles away from everything else... In the past, patients have had to travel long distances and wait weeks. Now, pharmacists are increasingly able to step in and provide these services directly, which has been a very big game-changer for access."
• The Frontline General | Rural Women's Clinic: "We're still being punished for providing abortion services... [but] what happens when we have a government that decides it doesn’t need to take care of its poor? We are a great net and we are very strong, but we can only hold so much."
• The Home Guard | Patient Advocates: "We are filling in the forward gap of just giving people the most basic of supplies and agency to take care of themselves, because often, these are people who don't have doctors.Being in the South was really important to me... I feel like I want to be here and want to be building movement... rather than just leaving. The community work is actually where the bulk of the change is happening."

The Distribution Strategy: From Views to Action

• We are not just creating content; we are building a viewer engagement engine. A story that isn't seen changes nothing.
• Our strategy is built on a value-based investment in paid social distribution. We will bypass the mainstream media gatekeepers and deliver these stories directly into the feeds of the people we need to move.
• The Approach: We will use broad targeting on Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and TikTok, allowing the platforms' machine learning to find the most engaged viewers. The power of our creative will drive the results.

The Costs & Reach (Based on 2025 Averages):

• Phase 1: The Pilot ($15,000 Investment): Produces and distributes one cornerstone film. This budget allows for approximately 2.5 Million targeted impressions, giving us robust data on message resonance and audience engagement in a key state.
• Phase 2: The State-Wide Campaign ($50,000 Investment): Produces the full initial series (3 films) and allows for a multi-platform distribution campaign delivering 8-10 Million targeted impressions across a key swing state, driving our call to action at scale.

The Partnership: The Invitation

• This is an invitation to invest in a new narrative—one that reframes this fight from a divisive political issue into a unifying American crisis. We are seeking partners to fund our Phase 2 State-Wide Campaign with a $50,000 investment.
• This investment will allow us to create a powerful storytelling engine that can be scaled, replicated, and deployed in the communities where it matters most.
• We have the strategy, we have the characters, and we have the unshakeable will to tell this story. Let's build this together.