Natural News – by J.D. HeyesA number of acute-care hospitals closed across the United States last year — 18 to be exact — and experts who see a raft of new regulatory processes being heaped upon the healthcare industry in the coming years, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, believe that a wave of additional closures are ahead.
As noted by WorldNetDaily, a dozen more hospitals have closed in the U.S. so far this year in rural areas alone; more are getting ready to be shuttered. But Dr. Lee Hieb, M.D., says this is just the beginning.
“Events happening now give us some idea of what medicine will be reduced to in the future,” she wrote in her upcoming book, Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare, which is being published by WND Books.
“Today, all over America, small and midsize hospitals as well as hospitals in inner-city, poor areas are closing,” Hieb, an orthopedic surgeon and past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, wrote.
The cascade of closures has begun
Critics of the president’s signature health “reform” law have long complained that it would fundamentally change American healthcare delivery — from insurance to the doctor’s office and everything in between. Hieb, in her book, suggests that the number of hospitals around the country will be dramatically reduced either because they cannot afford the implementation costs of all of Obamacare’s 2,400-plus pages of regulations or because the law’s higher out-of-pocket expenses for the insured will lead them to seek less care.
As WND notes:
She said the reasons for the closures aren’t complicated. Most of the victims are smaller hospitals or those in poor areas, which often serve the greatest number of Medicare and Medicaid patients.
A recent report at Modern Health Care, a healthcare business news site, confirmed that just among critical access hospitals — those with 25 beds or less — there were 14 closures in 10 states in 2013.
Georgia’s four closings last year were nothing new, according to Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, an organization of rural hospitals in Georgia. “We have no clue how to stop it, it’s so far gone,” he told Modern Health Care.
What’s more, Hieb noted, the rates that federal agencies pay out when reimbursing medical facilities and patients are not keeping pace with the growth of healthcare costs (another broken Obamacare promise).
She says that “whereas private insurance might pay the surgeon $4,500 for a spinal surgery (my specialty), Medicare paid less than $1,200.”
Regulations, under-payments to blame
Also, Hieb says the federal government — the country’s largest consumer of healthcare services, bar none — simply refuses to reimburse hospitals for certain services, with bureaucrats deeming them “not medically necessary,” no matter what doctors and patients say.
“The result is predictable: economic failure of hospitals and physician practices that have become dependent on government payment for large segments of their population,” Hieb wrote. “The hospitals and offices that will close are those with the least private insurance.”
One of the cases she cites is that of Temple Community Hospital in Los Angeles; it closed Sept. 9. Among the various reasons given by the facility for its demise were “low reimbursement rates” and “regulatory requirements.”
Another facility that closed its doors recently was Vidant Pungo Hospital, located in Belhaven, North Carolina; it shuttered July 1, the only hospital in a small, economically depressed rural farming town.
In that instance, the hospital’s closure left local doctors wondering how their patients will get access to timely care, considering the long distances to other hospitals. Further, residents were concerned about what to do when they had a medical emergency, where to get lab tests done and physical therapy.
Read Natural News‘ report on how Obamacare is making the doctor shortage even more severe: NaturalNews.com.
Sources:
http://www.modernhealthcare.com
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/048141_Obamacare_hospital_closures_health_care_system.html#ixzz3NIkkSNqT
When the American people finally wake up to the fact that the USG serves one single purpose – the total destruction of the quality of life for the American people – then they can see more clearly that each and every new law since the Bush clan took office – including Clinton & Obama has been designed for the purpose of destroying the middle class and all the nice things we felt entitled to like reasonable health care. This is all by design – Obamacare was designed to cost more money and deliver less care…the premiums and deductibles put even the most modest health care out of the reach of the working class.
Look at our crumbling cities, crumbling infrastructure and massive illegal immigration – forced on us by the USG – they will spend none of our tax dollars on anything to improve America – DESTRUCTION of America is their agenda 24/7…………kill off all able bodied men/women in neverending useless wars to expand the globalist/central banking empires and drug trades………we have been looted into poverty – GE Bush took us from the world’s greatest creditor to the world’s biggest debtor – the American people for fleeced in every possible way…Obama was installed in office to demonize the Democratic Party in order to pave the way for yet another BUSH traitor and mafia member to take the POTUS for more destruction, more wars, more looting……..and destroying our health care system is one of the biggest attacks ever on the American people.
meanwhile Obama is setting up luxury housing for millions of illegals to have free medical and dental to go along with big screen TVs, latest computer systems and 24 cafeteria service………this is what the taxpayer is forced to pay for and part of the reason Obamacare was designed – The USG is destroying life in America for its citizens by design.
I think manufacturing has been effectively destroyed. And other middle class/working class careers, as well. Now they are going after the more white collar middle class sector of the economy. Soon all will be destroyed, and we will only have serfs and lords. Nothing in the middle.
As for Obamacare, the lack of reporting on this (compared to last year) tells me that they know there is no good news about Obamacare. Not even fake good news — no one is buying that anymore. And we all know the media is not going to report negative news until and unless it suits the people who make such decisions about what is reported. So they just don’t report on those topics at all. Or frame it such that we get distracted by a tiny bit of it, like a zit on its face, and ignore the big picture. Like we really aren’t hearing about Ebola right now, either.
it’s like it’s a slow news day, all the time, with nothing in depth and then onto the next sensation, no meaningful followup. A quick scan of today’s mainstream headlines: missing jet probably at bottom of sea (soon to be yesterday’s news), sports, return unwanted Christmas gifts and buy this other stuff on sale, and be sure to get your flu shot.
Just saying, the difference between mainstream media reporting and alternative reporting is a chasm a mile wide.