The Washingtonian’s View

The economy is hurting everyone.  The housing industry, the food industry, the transportation industry, the movie industry.  But another group is also suffering…the medical industry.  More importantly, the hospitals.

With the American public have to strech their paychecks, many people are struggling to pay tfor their basic needs.

As a result, local hospitals are seeing a rise in their charity care line items. The good  [and sometimes bad] of it is, hospitals almost never turn away health care to people regardless of their ability to pay. In the cases where a patient is unable to pay because they don’t have insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, hospitals absorb the cost as charity care.

This is becoming more common than not.  Hospital’s emergency response (ER) wards were already reaching critical levels with many people referring to these wards as primary care centres.

Hospital administrators say charity care costs are going up, and for a myriad of reasons, including patients who don’t have insurance or are underinsured. Rising gas and food prices and flattening wages only compound the problem.

At one particular hospital in New Hampshire, the amount of charity has risen from this time last year — from about $8 million during the first half of 2007 to about $15 million in the first half of 2008.

It may be true that the hospitals have done a better job at reaching out to people that need health care, but many people have insurance plans with high deductibles, so they shoulder more of the health costs.  With that in mind, hospitals are the last to get paid,  When people are having to pay $4.50 a gallon for gas and their living wage hasn’t increased, something has to be let give.

Hospitals base their charity care policies on the federal poverty level — about $10,400 a year for a single person; about $22,000 for a family of four — whether the patients are on Medicare or Medicaid, or have any kind of insurance and how much.