ATLANTA -- The tiny Stewart-Webster Hospital in Richland, about 90 miles southwest of Macon, is suspending operations this week. It's the latest chapter in a long story of poor rural access to health care, a story that advocates say is only getting worse.

"Rural Georgians are less healthy than those living in urban areas. They are more likely to be underinsured or uninsured," Matt Caseman, executive director of the Georgia Rural Health Association, said Wednesday in a presentation to the state Legislature's Rural Caucus. There's more diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer among rural populations, and country residents are more likely than those living in the city to die in traumatic accidents, he said.

Six of Georgia's 159 counties lack a family physician, according to 2013 state numbers. The picture for specialists is worse: 63 counties lack a pediatrician and 79 lack an OB/GYN.