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WINDBER, PA, January 17, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – An obstetrics ward in rural Pennsylvania will close by March of this year and expectant mothers will be rerouted to hospitals 10-15 miles away to deliver their babies, due in part to ObamaCare.

Windber Medical Center announced earlier this week that part of the blame rests on the shrinking reimbursement rates for expectant mother care and birthing services forecasted under the Affordable Care Act.

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In its announcement, WMC references “a challenging healthcare environment” as cause for regularly evaluating its services in light of profitability.

The Comprehensive Baby Care program at WMC has served thousands of women in the surrounding three counties for more than 30 years, and its website highlights a recent addition of new doctors in the OB/GYN center.

WMC’s board of directors has concluded that replacing the personnel might not be fiscally feasible and, thus, “may not serve in the hospital's or community's best interest.”

Now, two of those doctors are phasing baby deliveries out of their practices and refocusing on women’s gynecological care, while the others plan to relocate their practices.

This is the first reported incident of an OB/GYN practice shifting to strictly gynecological services due to ObamaCare’s lowered reimbursement rates for obstetrics and increased emphasis on “preventative care” in gynecology, with an emphasis on “free” birth control.

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Nationwide, doctors are under pressure to provide services that insurance companies under ObamaCare will pay for that keep their practices out of the red.

The town, located in Somerset County about 60 miles outside Pittsburgh, has a population of just under 4,400 people. Barack Obama spoke about the residents of such small communities at a 2008 fundraiser in San Francisco, saying small town residents “get bitter [and] they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”