So the U.S. funds every damn third to fifth world country for what ever bogus reason but can’t help fund American hospitals to keep Americans alive? Yes, it IS time for President Trump to “Make American Great Again”!!!!
How many jobs were lost in those hospital closings?
Where is funding hospitals mentioned in the Constitution as a federal responsibility?
That was not revealed in the TV report or this extremely short article.
Sure some of the skilled staffers will find other jobs, at lower pay, but that is age dependent too older more experienced will be passed over for younger less experienced as they can be hired cheaper. The aids, cleaners, food, workers will have the hardest time finding anther job.
I’m not picking a fight here, but the decline of rural hospitals has been going on for a long, long time. This just happens to be one of the very few subjects that I know something about.
In the 1950’s there was a big push to encourage rural counties to develop their own hospitals. Most were in the 100-200 bed range - not all that big. (I was until recently the Director of Capital Projects for a 1,600 bed county hospital system in three campuses here in Florida.) These hospitals from the 50’s were primarily funded through revenue bonds issued by the counties supplemented by local fund raising. Then as now, hospital beds are “commissioned” by state health departments based on community needs, so in order to grow (or shrink), any change in the number of beds needs to be approved by the state. As technology and building codes for hospitals were improved, these older hospitals became more expensive to operate and virtually impossible to keep code-compliant (ADA, environmental challenges, etc.). Not surprisingly, after about 40 years of operation, these hospitals were no longer economically viable and faced bankruptcy or worse.
In the late 1990’s Congress actually did something right. Congress passed the Critical Access Hospital Act (CAHA) which allowed investors to purchase existing rural hospitals for pennies on the dollar, decommission the existing beds, and build new, code compliant 25 bed CAH’s. The key to the success of this program is that investors would be allowed to roll the cost of the initial purchase of the ‘old’ facility into the new hospital and depreciate that investment at the same rate as the depreciation of the new building. This is a substantial tax advantage and led to the creation of many, many CAH’s. In addition, the CAH’s would be affiliated with regional hospital who provided specialty caregivers that rotated from the ‘parent’ hospital to the CAH. The net result was intended to bring the size of the local healthcare delivery system into line with the local populations and still provide a high level of care.
Unfortunately, this did not solve the basic problem of lifestyle choices for the full-time caregivers who would be required to staff the new CAH’s. Nor did it address the cost control for Medicare and Medicaid procedures mandated by the Department of HHS.
Bottom line, the funding of the rural healthcare systems is not a federal issue. It is funded through local bond sources and investors, with significant incentives provided through the CAHA.
I hope this helps.