Fourth Georgia Hospital Shuts Down As The State Continues To Refuse Medicaid Expansion
Source: Thinkprogress
For the fourth time in two years, a rural hospital in Georgia is shuttering its doors over a dearth of patients who can pay for their medical services, the Albany Herald reports. An increasing number of hospitals that serve large numbers of poor and uninsured Americans are being forced to close in states that are refusing the Affordable Care Acts Medicaid expansion.
The Lower Oconee Community Hospital, a so-called critical access hospital in southeastern Georgia with 25 beds, will close down and possibly re-open as an urgent care center that provides services that arent quite serious enough to necessitate an emergency room visit. Patients in the Wheeler County region who need more extensive medical care after the hospital closes will need to travel upwards of thirty miles in order to receive it.
We just did not have sufficient volume to support the expenses, said CEO Karen ONeal in an interview with local CBS affiliate WMAZ. Its a terrible situation, and its tragic, the loss of jobs and the economic impact.
Last fall, Bloomberg reported that at least five public hospitals in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia including three in Georgia alone were cutting staff and services in the wake of their refusal to expand Medicaid. These hospitals are so-called Disproportionate Share Hospitals providers that serve a disproportionate number of poor and uninsured Americans, and as such dont always receive payments for the care they give patients.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/18/3299961/fourth-georgia-hospital-shuts/
LynneSin
(95,337 posts)I mean in general the poor are getting screwed but it's way worse in the red states.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)Will they be finally able to see how their own self interests are disregarded by those they've been fooled into supporting?
A girl can dream...
Julie--the dreamer
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Hayduke Bomgarte
(1,965 posts)I'll bet a weeks pay they just can't wait to get out and vote for those who will save them from two guys or two ladies holding hands, and whoever else Limbaugh and Fox tell them to.
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Glitterati
(3,182 posts)not that that matters in politics, right?
Sometimes DU makes me sick.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)What does this say about Americas elites? If you define elites as high-income non-Hispanic whites, the elites vote strongly Republican. If you define elites as college-educated high-income whites, they vote moderately Republican.
There is no plausible way based on these data in which elites can be considered a Democratic voting bloc. To create a group of strongly Democratic-leaning elite whites using these graphs, you would need to consider only postgraduates (no simple college grads included, even if they have achieved social and financial success), and you have to go down to the below-$75,000 level of family income, which hardly seems like the American elites to me.
The patterns are consistent for all three of the past presidential elections. (The differences in the higher-income low-education category should not be taken seriously, as the estimates are based on small samples, as can be seen from the large standard errors for those subgroups.)
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)is proceeding as scheduled
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)bkanderson76
(266 posts)ridding the basement of rats, you starve 'em then watch 'em flounder in poison.
louis-t
(23,291 posts)And people killers. Disgusting.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)hibbing
(10,096 posts)Gosh this country is seriously screwed up. Bunch of Bible thumpers doing their best to deny health care to the least (wealthy) among us. I suppose just like the state I live in where the governor rejected Medicaid expansion and is now pushing "tax relief", i.e. tax cuts for the 1%.
Peace
Lobo27
(753 posts)That only values life in words!!!
Because once your born you're a moocher and when you're old they can't wait for you to die.
greymattermom
(5,754 posts)We are sending our tax dollars to pay for Yankee health care.
NYtoBush-Drop Dead
(490 posts)they will stop voting in these miscreants.