We Told You So…
From Alabama last night came word that a 124-bed hospital in Mobile will be shutting down – and that Obamacare is to blame for the closure. Here’s what the CEO of the hospital system said in a statement:
We made this decision after evaluating the utilization of the facility, the healthcare needs of the community served by Infirmary West and determining how we could better utilize our resources to improve and expand health services in this area of our community…The passage of the ‘Affordable Care Act’ (Healthcare Reform), challenges hospitals and health systems to re-evaluate how to best allocate their resources to serve the needs of our community.
This development was entirely predictable – not only that, it was predicted. Here’s what the non-partisan Medicare actuary said about Obamacare’s potential impacts not long after the law was passed:
Reductions in payment updates to health care providers, based on economy-wide productivity gains, are unlikely to be sustainable on a permanent annual basis.…Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries). Simulations by the Office of the Actuary suggest that roughly 15 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.
And so it hath proved.