[DoughtyOne]

Hospitals have been battered by health maintenance organizations pushing down prices. With fewer hospitals, the prevailing logic goes, those that remain would be in a stronger negotiating position with H.M.O.'s - in other words, they could charge more.

What a hoot. The government and now the private insurance industry both tell the hospitals what they will pay, and the hospitals have to make do on that.

Go ahead close all the hospitals you like. As long as you don't pay hospitals what it costs to service patients, more will close.

By the time our government figures it out, you'll have two year waiting periods for all but open heart surgery, and even then they'll put it off for months if they can.

Hospitals are getting screwed, and you're next.

Who pays for the illegal alien bills? The government? Surely you jest...

[Doctor Stochastic]

Fixed costs go down, incremental costs go up. Someone will have to count the beans to see what happens.

Ireland closed a bunch of hospitals and achieved large savings.