One of Miami-Dade’s hospital networks has been given six weeks to live:
The city’s major hospital network, which runs Miami’s only round-the-clock trauma center and is a safety net for the poor and uninsured, is running out of money and could close, a predicament that illustrates the precarious financial state of many hospitals around the country.
The Jackson Health System will have little cash on hand by the end of March if it does not receive a $67 million advance from the county, said Marcos Lapciuc, treasurer of the Public Health Trust, the institution’s governing board.
“We are very close, if not already in, a health care death spiral,” Chief Operating Officer David Small said.
Jackson could run out of cash and shut by May or sooner, Lapciuc said, and the county mayor said officials were preparing to advance the hospital some money.
Suffering a massive aneurysm or a 3AM gunshot wound has always been a bad (if occasionally unavoidable) idea, but if the only Level One trauma center in Miami that is actually staffed at that hour has to shut down, it will soon be a whole lot worse. The epidemic (no pun intended) of uninsured patients apres-recession paired with budget cuts has left them something like $200 million in the red when it comes to providing charity care, and they’re not unique in this situation, as New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation could soon be running a billion-dollar deficit and the hospitals in California are a hotter mess than I can summarize in one sentence of a blog post.
That’s a ton of scratch, and I’m not sure even a back-room kidney-scalping ring could save them. At the very least, it sounds like medical supply vendors are getting antsy, which means if you’re scheduled for a procedure any time soon you may want to tote in your own gown, scalpel and suture materials just in case.
Since this is actually my second Idiocracy reference this week, I’m going to link the Dr. Lexus video (nsfw language so grab those headphones kids):
Bill // Mar 11, 2010 at 1:02 am
I totally see black market health care comin’. Set up a booth (or better yet, unmarked van) right outside the abandoned hospital parking lot. Get a bullet removal and for free we’ll give you “extra big ass fries!”
Alyx // Mar 11, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Among the many things I learned from Ice-T’s classic track “Midnight” is that fairly serious bullet wounds can be patched up in the ‘hood with a minimum of overhead. Throwing in an order of In-N-Out animal fries would make it even better.
Matt // Mar 12, 2010 at 3:53 am
This just begs for a rewrite:
The country’s major government network, which runs America’s only round-the-clock trauma center and is a safety net for the poor and uninsured, is running out of money and could close, a predicament that illustrates the precarious financial state of many governments around the world.
The US System will have little cash on hand by the end of March if it does not receive a $67 trillion advance from the ether, said Marcos Lapciuc, treasurer of the Public Trust, the governing board.
“We are very close, if not already in, a death spiral,” Chief Operating Officer David Small said.
America could run out of cash and shut by May or sooner, Lapciuc said, and the president said the chinese were preparing to advance the country some money.