<p>Doctors don’t even like Medicaid, Mini. Hospitals do not make money by treating people without insurance. Otherwise public hospitals in (poor areas) would not be closing their doors and setting up new hospital systems in rich suburbs and exurbs. Your facts are all wrong.</p>
<p>I read an article recently–I wish I remembered where–that immigrants, including illegal ones-- are to be valued because they are young, risk-takers, show initiative, not afraid to work hard, all qualities that we, aging baby boomers need to sustain our lifestyles as we march reluctantly into the sunset.</p>
<p>“Doctors don’t even like Medicaid, Mini. Hospitals do not make money by treating people without insurance. Otherwise public hospitals in (poor areas) would not be closing their doors and setting up new hospital systems in rich suburbs and exurbs. Your facts are all wrong.”</p>
<p>You obviously don’t know how hospitals (especially rural hospitals) work, do you? (Doesn’t surprise me, and it surprises me even less that you wouldn’t bother to check.) Do you know what percentage of patients in rural hospitals (immigrants or not) are on Medicaid? Do you know what kind of volume is necessary to sustain accreditation in rural locations? Do you know what kind of volume is necessary for the average rural physician to stay in business. Do you know what the loss ratios are in states where Medicaid does not cover undocumented workers v. those that do. There IS a problem - where patients (and makes not one whit of difference whether they are undocumented, documented, or 12th-generation Americans) don’t have health insurance.</p>
<p>This is all publicly and easily available information. If I post it, you won’t be believe me (I only worked for the State Board of Health for 12 years, and have visited every single rural hospital in the state.) Do your own research and get back to us.</p>
<p>MINI, repeat after me: hospitals do not make money off of Medicaid nor people who are without insurance. I am speaking for metropolitan areas who make up 75% of the nation’s population. Hospital systems are expanding to outer suburbs to tap on wealthy insured (and aging) patients. They do not want to treat underinsured folks.</p>
<p>Post the links, mini. I’ve noticed that you have been mostly all talk and no substance (backup information). Hospitals are corporate businesses now.</p>
<p>You can find the links yourself. You’re a smart person.</p>
<p>Empty beds aren’t good business.</p>
<p>“They do not want to treat underinsured folks.”</p>
<p>You can say that again, and again. Doesn’t have anything to do with their legal status.</p>
<p>The apple business is so bad now that some former migrant workers are buying the orchards cheap and operating them with their extended families in Washington. Many of the rest are switching to grapes.</p>
<p>Mini, since you will not post the links, therefore your information is not credible. Since the beginning.</p>
<p>“The apple business is so bad now that some former migrant workers are buying the orchards cheap and operating them with their extended families in Washington. Many of the rest are switching to grapes.”</p>
<p>Yup. I know of at least two large orchards south of Wenatchee where that is the case. In apples, though (Wenatchee area), the migrant labor force has basically settled out - they aren’t “legal”, but they aren’t migrants either. They are also buying up local businesses that serve Hispanics. Bakeries, housing cooperatives, grocery stores, auto repair. Voting patterns are beginning to change, too, as the kids (all citizens) are growing up. Wenatchee Valley Medical Center has now expanded to 9 locations, with 170 physicians (including several who are the sons of undocumented workers.) 1,100 employees. Guess what percentage of their patients are on Medicaid?</p>
<p>WHy don’t the welfare offices suggest to able bodied men and women who are collecting to go and do some of this labor that the illegal aliens (that’s what they are, not undocumented workers) are doing. If the welfare recipients won’t do that, why should they receive a check?</p>
<p>Pregnant women on Medicaid – poor and traditionally shunted to overburdened inner-city hospitals and clinics – are becoming among the most lucrative patients in the health-care business.</p>
<p><a href=“Under Construction”>Under Construction;
<p>DESPITE CHALLENGES, EL PASOS TWO DOMINANT HEALTH SYSTEMS CONTINUE TO SHOW PROFITS, ACCORDING TO HEALTHLEADERS-INTERSTUDY</p>
<p>December 19, 2005 - Nashville, Tenn. - HealthLeaders-InterStudy, a leading provider of managed care industry intelligence, finds that El Paso, Texas’ two major hospital systems, Sierra Providence Health Network, owned by Tenet, and Las Palmas-Del Sol Regional Healthcare System, owned by HCA, continue to compete vigorously in a market marked by low wages and a high uninsured rate. According to the latest issue of the El Paso Market Overview, very strong margins are being realized by hospitals serving El Paso’s rapidly growing population of young families.</p>
<p>“El Paso hospitals must find ways of absorbing increasing uncompensated care costs that result from the high level of uninsured people in the region,” said Patrick Powers, HealthLeaders-InterStudy senior analyst. “El Paso’s uninsured rate is between 27 and 33 percent, one of the highest in Texas, which in turn has the highest uninsured rate among states.”</p>
<p>Sierra Providence Health Network will start building a new hospital in 2006 in east El Paso, to compete in with Las Palmas-Del Sol in this area of fast-growing population. Sierra Providence is a for-profit network that accounts for 41 percent of El Paso’s total hospital discharges and 46 percent of licensed inpatient beds. Las Palmas-Del Sol Regional Healthcare System is a for-profit provider network that accounts for 32 percent of the area’s total hospital discharges and licensed inpatient beds. It has recently expanded its emergency facilities, and is planning for further growth.</p>
<p><a href=“http://home.healthleaders-interstudy.com/index.php?p=press-archive-detailed&pr=pr_12192005[/url]”>http://home.healthleaders-interstudy.com/index.php?p=press-archive-detailed&pr=pr_12192005</a></p>
<p>Providence had a profit of $70.8 million in fiscal year 2003, compared to a profit of $124.9 million in fiscal year 2002, according to the institute’s last two studies. Sierra’s profit was $40.5 million in 2003, compared to $84.9 million in the previous report.</p>
<p>Providence had the largest profits among eight El Paso hospitals, according to data reported by the California institute.</p>
<p>Del Sol was second with profits of $56.6 million, up from $50.2 million in its fiscal year 2002 cost report.</p>
<p>Providence’s gross charges were 676 percent of costs. That was slightly down from the 2004 study, when it ranked 44th most expensive in the nation. It ranked 46th in the new study.</p>
<p>Del Sol’s gross charges in 2003 were 565 percent, up from the previous year. Las Palmas’ charges were 449 percent in 2003, down slightly from the previous report.</p>
<p>The national average gross charges for 4,184 hospitals in the study was 244 percent of costs, up from 232 percent the previous year.</p>
<p><a href=“California Nurses Association | National Nurses United”>California Nurses Association | National Nurses United;
<p>I hope you’ve grown a bit since the days when you were not tall enough to pick from a blueberry bush
lol well not much - I am 5"3’ but I kept growing till I was 20 :)</p>
<p>Cost of Caring for Uninsured Skyrockets
<a href=“http://www.rwjuh.edu/news/uninsured.html[/url]”>http://www.rwjuh.edu/news/uninsured.html</a></p>
<p>Costs for uninsured workers up
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/02/02/costs_for_uninsured_workers_up/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/02/02/costs_for_uninsured_workers_up/</a></p>
<p>Saving Lives, Losing Millions at Pr. George’s Hospital
With Few Paying Patients, Center Is Caught in Its Own Death Spiral
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20300-2003Dec21?language=printer[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20300-2003Dec21?language=printer</a></p>
<p>Emergency rooms feel fiscal pain
Uninsured patients cost hospitals, docs millions, study says
<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/22/BUGV88SKRT1.DTL[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/22/BUGV88SKRT1.DTL</a></p>
<p>Paying patients, taxpayers sharing bills of uninsured
Stephen Zuckerman, Urban Institute health economist<br>
What are the best ways to provide medical care for young adults without insurance?</p>
<p>By SHEILA WISSNER
Staff Writer</p>
<p>It is now an accepted practice: the government and those with medical insurance helping pay the medical bills of those without insurance.</p>
<p>And it’s costing billions of dollars a year in higher taxes and insurance premiums.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tennessean.com/special/insurance/archives/04/04/49106989.shtml?Element_ID=49106989[/url]”>http://www.tennessean.com/special/insurance/archives/04/04/49106989.shtml?Element_ID=49106989</a></p>
<p>What Is the Economic Impact of a Lack of Health Insurance?
The lack of health insurance is a financial drain on hospitals, employers, and the uninsured themselves.</p>
<p>The more than 1.7 million uninsured in Illinois, with few exceptions, cannot afford to pay for their health care. They have more problems paying medical bills than those with insurance and are more likely to be contacted by a collection agency about unpaid medical bills. A 1999 study reported in the New York University Law Review cited illness or injury as the second-largest factor in personal bankruptcy, affecting an estimated half-million middle-class families.</p>
<p>Because uninsured patients enter the hospital with more severe illnesses than those with insurance, they often incur higher hospital bills. When uninsured patients cannot pay for their care, hospitals must absorb those costs. Illinois hospitals provide almost $1.8 billion a year in uncompensated care, including “charity” care.</p>
<p>For many years, hospitals used surplus revenues from private payers and government to cover charity care for the uninsured. Today, however, lower Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and managed-care payments have evaporated those margins and are making cost-shifting impossible. Two-thirds of Illinois hospitals already lose money on patient care and rely on revenues from investments, clinics, and other ventures to keep their doors open. Nineteen Illinois hospitals have closed since 1990.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ihatoday.org/issues/payment/uninsured/care.html[/url]”>http://www.ihatoday.org/issues/payment/uninsured/care.html</a></p>
<p>xiggi, mini, you can complain all you want. Hospitals (and state governments) are LOSING money trying to care for uninsured folks.</p>