Hospital Closings 'Smack of Final Solution for Urban Centers'
Lyndon LaRouche
July 7, 2008 (LPAC)--The New Jersey state budget for fiscal year 2009 requires $600 million in cuts below the previous budget. More than 18% of those cuts--$111 million--are from ``charity care,'' which includes reimbursement to hospitals for services for people who have no medical insurance.
Betsy Ryan, the president and CEO-designee of the New Jersey Hospital Association, told the Washington Post that the budget ``marks the state's retreat from its commitment to pay a fair amount for the care that it mandates that hospitals provide to any of the 1.3 million New Jersey residents without health insurance.''
An estimated 15% of the New Jersey population have no medical insurance, and that percent can only be expected to increase, with the continued collapse of the economy. The law requires that all people be given required treatment at hospitals, whether or not they have medical insurance.
"The brunt of this cut will be borne by the hospitals themselves," Ryan said. "The timing and the severity of these cuts couldn't be worse. New Jersey has lost seven hospitals to closure in the last 18 months, and an eighth hospital plans to close its doors in the coming days. Five others have declared bankruptcy. Of the 75 hospitals that remain, half are losing money."
In 1995, New Jersey had 112 acute care hospitals.
Prof. Jonathan M. Metsch at the New Jersey School of Public Health predicts, ``We're going to have a run of [hospital] bankruptcies this summer.... Bankruptcy trumps everything.''
``The hospitals that close are generally in urban areas with minority people living there, and they don't count politically," said the Rev. James Colvin, who has been leading a fight to keep Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield open. The state approved closing the 355-bed acute care hospital last month. ``From a `survival of the fittest' standpoint, it makes sense,'' Colvin said. ``We're saying it smacks of the final solution for urban centers. Someone else called it `genocide lite.'''
New Jersey may be worse off than some, but people in most states are facing the same dilemma.
www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/07/07/hospital-closings-smack-final-solution-urban-centers.html