Atlanta Hospital in Grave Condition

[RedEarth]

Source: AP

ATLANTA (AP) - For generations, Grady Memorial Hospital has treated the poorest of the poor, victims of stabbings and shootings, and motorists grievously injured in Atlanta's murderous rush-hour traffic.

Now, Grady itself is in grave condition.

Staggering under a deficit projected at $55 million, the city's only public hospital could close at the end of the year, leaving Atlanta without a major trauma center and foisting thousands of poor people onto emergency rooms at other hospitals for their routine medical care.

"I don't have the words to describe the onslaught of health care needs that will hit the region if Grady were to close," said Dr. Katherine Heilpern, chief of emergency medicine at the Emory University medical school, which uses Grady as a teaching hospital and supplies many of its physicians. "This is a huge deal. We may literally have people's lives at stake if the Grady Health System fails and spirals down into financial insolvency."



Read more: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20071126/D8T5HBAO0.html

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Single-Payer National Health Insurance
Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 46 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php