It's not just patients feeling the crush of our current health care situation. It's not only the tens of millions of uninsured. Or the tens of millions more underinsured. Or the plenty insured who still get screwed over.
Our complete lack of a health care "system" is now shoving hospitals off the precipice. And in the middle of a flu pandemic. Well that just sucks.
The Thomson Reuters analysis concludes that about 50 percent of U.S. hospitals are losing money, and that total margins for U.S. hospitals declined last year. The worst-performing hospitals had margins of negative-7 percent, while the best performing hospitals' margins topped 4.5 percent.
-- Article
Ahh the efficiency of a free market system. I mean, who could have predicted that a health care "system" subject to the whims of economic peaks and valleys would be subject to the whims of economic peaks and valleys?
And now hospitals are crumbling. Not because demand for help is down. But because there's no money.
Well...at LEAST there's been a corresponding drop in insurance premiums.....what? Oh there hasn't been?
Wait. So let me get this straight. Hospitals are dying. People are dying or living in agony or choosing to birth children in their homes out of economic necessity rather than principle (my son would have died if we did that. Seriously), and fewer people are seeking care, and service reimbursements are dropping and insurance rates are STILL going up?
Now that's weird.
So where's all the money going?
The median profit margin of U.S. hospitals has fallen to zero percent, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis of hospital finances published today. Driven largely by a decline in non-operating revenues, financial strains are apparent in all types of hospitals — small, medium and large community hospitals, teaching hospitals and major teaching hospitals.
--Article
Where's all the fucking money going?
Inpatient numbers are dropping for both elective procedures and NECESSARY procedures. Particularly, for some bizarre reason, hip replacements (?). Why? Not because people are less ill, but because people don't have any frickin' money. That's why. Some studies will say that there's no correlation between GDP or unemployment and inpatient numbers, but 45% of hospitals reporting drop offs in admittance will tell you that's a big load of horse shit.
Where's all our money going?
As of February a Chicago hospital, the University of Chicago Medical center slashed 450 staff, 15 senior managers, and 30 inpatient beds in an attempt to stay afloat.
The University of Chicago's medical centre, Chicago BioMedicine, is axing 450 staff in a bid to save $100m a year, it has been revealed.
The move follows the termination of 15 senior managers last month, part of cost-cutting exercises "accelerated by the economy", the hospital said in a statement.
The medical centre also will cut 30 inpatient beds, reduce weekend hours at a surgical unit and redirect non-emergency care patients to other facilities, according to the statement.
Where the fuck is our insane expenditure of health care money going?
Grady Memorial Hospital plans to close three of its nine neighborhood clinics, sparking outrage from some local officials and fears from patients that they will lose their health care.
--article
Look...maybe I'm wrong here, but if all the money we dump into health care can't keep HOSPITALS open, we are collectively fucked whether we have insurance or not.
Caritas, the health care company that runs Mary Immaculate Hospital and St. John's Queens Hospital, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The closure plan aims to board up both hospitals by the end of February 2009. This is bad news for our Jamaica and Elmhurst, and most of central Queens.
The two Queens hospitals see around 100,000 people in their emergency rooms every year. Their closings means those people will overfill the emergency rooms at other Queens hospitals.
--Article
and another --Article about the closer of two Queens hospitals
PLAQUEMINE — A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge ordered financially troubled River West Medical Center closed on Friday, as recommended by a court-appointed ombudsman who was assigned to monitor patient care at the hospital.
[snip]
Efforts to reorganize the hospital under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code “have now been overtaken by a ‘perfect storm’ of adverse events … (that) will lead to the imminent and significant decline and material compromise of the quality of patient care,” Pepper wrote.
--Article
The letter announced to us that the Shriners Hospital she has thought of as a second home may close. Even though they have provided free medical care since the Great Depression, budget shortfalls caused by rising costs and flatlined donations have forced the organization to consider shuttering one-fourth of their 22 hospitals for children.
This move would affect facilities in Springfield, Massachusetts; Shreveport, Louisiana.; Erie, Pennsylvania; Spokane, Washington; and Greenville, North Carolina. It is likely that the hospital in Galveston, Texas, heavily damaged and closed since Hurricane Ike in 2008, will be included in this action, even though it has received federal disaster funds.
--Article
SOMERSET — Financial losses and duplication of services will close Somerset Hospital’s 15-bed skilled nursing facility.
--Article
The bottom line...because of Washington's foot dragging on this issue for so long, and because of the idiocy of the supporters of a "free market health care system" America's health care infrastructure is crashing around us. From the small family trying to get by and keep their kids safe, to the individuals putting off medical concerns because they can't afford help anyway, to the small businesses squeezed to death by rising premiums, to the very hospitals and clinics we rely on for medical attention...we are ALL crashing and burning because of Washington's sloth and worship of the insurance companies.
The private health care option, without at least a public option, is not the road to a functional health care system. We've been there. We've done that. It's killing us and making millions live in pain or die early un-necessary deaths.
Here are some links for further reading
http://www.wtnh.com/...
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/...
http://www.latimes.com/...