February 26 , 2010 – Since the current economic recession began in December 2007, providers that care for the nation’s most vulnerable patients have seen a 23-percent increase in those who lack health insurance – and many institutions are nearing a financial breaking point, the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems reported this week.
The association, which represents more than 100 public health care providers nationwide, has been surveying its members since early 2009 to find out how they’ve fared during the past two years as the economy took a dip and the unemployment shot up to 10 percent. In all, 41 health systems responded to the survey.February 26 , 2010 – Since the current economic recession began in December 2007, providers that care for the nation’s most vulnerable patients have seen a 23-percent increase in those who lack health insurance – and many institutions are nearing a financial breaking point, the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems reported this week.
As expected, the poll showed that while lawmakers bickered over how to reform America’s health care system, the nation’s safety-net doctors, nurses and pharmacists continued to care for a growing cadre of patients with nowhere else to go.
With an estimated 46 million Americans now lacking health insurance and many more being underinsured, such institutions have amassed on average $2.3 million in uncompensated care costs since the beginning of the economic downturn, NAPH reported. Three suffered losses exceeding $16 million.
Adding insult to injury, state Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals with large Medicaid populations have dropped precariously as states grapple with massive budget deficits. More than a quarter of the care at public hospitals, 27 percent, goes to Medicaid patients.
“The impact will weaken the fragile viability of the nation’s safety net and force public hospitals to close their doors due to inadequate financing,” NAPH President Larry Gage warned in a statement.
In an effort to stay afloat, many institutions have resorted to staff cuts. Last year, there were 152 mass layoffs at hospitals in the United States, the largest number since the government began tracking such layoffs in the mid-1990s.