In an article published September 7, 2009 in the Chicago Tribune, Carla Johnson reports that the health care proposals in Congress may threaten the funding and future of the nation’s already struggling safety net hospitals. These proposals to finance national reform would reduce the payments by $20 billion dollars to public hospitals. This is a major problem because many of these hospitals provide most of the nation’s charity care to the poor. Johnson argues that even with this new health care plan, “illegal immigrants, the mentally ill and drug addicts will keep arriving at safety net hospitals without insurance”. With all the unusual expenses that safety net hospitals need, the funds they receive from insured patients will not be enough to keep them in business. Lawmakers reason that once more Americans are insured; there will be less need for the government to make payments. Johnson states that she is concerned because “with the amount of people that these safety net hospitals cover it is clear that the funds from the newly insured Americans will not be enough. These hospitals will still be treating those who will be left out of the “universal” health care coverage.
These hospitals are clearly going to have to adapt to these new policies. Safety net hospitals will need to come up with a way to raise money other than receiving disproportionate share hospital funds. The downside of this is that hospitals will have to stop treating people, which is going against the main idea of universal health care. While this new health care plan is making it easier for some to receive health insurance, it is still making it very difficult for a certain group of people to receive medical attention.
Should the government be liable for funding public hospitals? If public hospitals go out of business will newly insured Americans even be able to find a hospital to be treated at or will they have to wait days to see a doctor?
To read the full article visit Chicago Tribune
Really interesting topic, Jamie. I had previously assumed that the health care reform would have taken into consideration the challenges and accomplishments of safety net hospitals so they wouldn't be reinventing the wheel when it comes to providing coverage for the poor. From Carla Johnson's article, however, it seems like they did not consider this which jeopardizes key public hospitals throughout the country.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion public hospitals should be reformed along with other health care topics. From my experiences with public clinics and V.A. hospitals - when money is tight service is inefficient and care is low quality.
Also, CNN reported today that illegal immigrants would not be covered by the health care bill, but would still be treated (for free usually) in the E.R. as they are now. Who will fund that if public hospitals go under?
I agree that this topic is very interesting and raises a lot of concern. So many different factors that make up this health reform create concerns in almost all fields in health care. I think it is impossible to impose a reform in which all health services will benefit no matter what. I do not think that anyone will 100% know if this reform will be successful until it is passed and implemented. The fact that there will still be so much that is unknown until a reform is implemented is really scary. I think that this is why people are so hesitant to agree to such a big reform, but on the other side it is definitely needed! No matter what, our country is taking a huge risk!
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I think it would be hard to make a reform within the safety net hospitals until we know the consequences of the health care reform that becomes implemented. To me it sounds really hypocritical. All we hear is how much we need a reform to make sure that those who cannot afford health insurance will be insured. However, according to this article, there will still be many Americans who will not be able to get legitimate health care. I think that this article and your reflection raise really good points, but I really believe it will almost be impossible to answer these questions until there is a new health care plan enforced. This is because no matter how confident the government is in the new health care reform that they agree upon, no one can truly predict how it will turn out until we try it out.