{"id":9,"date":"2013-03-26T09:41:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T13:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/rural-hospitals-closing.html"},"modified":"2013-03-26T09:41:26","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T13:41:26","slug":"rural-hospitals-closing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/rural-hospitals-closing.html","title":{"rendered":"Rural hospitals closing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nA state that forces hospital closings by refusing Medicare expansion\nwhile spending a billion dollars a year on locking up too many\nprisoners has its priorities wrong.\n<\/p>\n

\nTom Baxter wrote for SaportaReport yesterday,\n\nOminous signs for rural Georgia as hospitals shut their doors,<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\n<\/a>\nLewis forecast at the beginning of the year that five to six rural\nhospitals might be forced to close in 2013, and already there have\nbeen two.\n\nCalhoun Memorial<\/a> Hospital in Arlington closed in February,\nand\n\nStewart-Webster<\/a> Hospital in Richland shut its doors last week.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat’s only a foretaste, Lewis says, of what’s going to happen when\nthe Affordable Care Act next year eliminates the\n\nsubsidies<\/a> which\nhave been key to the survival of many of these hospitals, and\nimposes new standards \u2014 for instances, penalizing hospitals\nfor readmitting patients in less than 30 days \u2014 which will\ndirectly impact their bottom line.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe will probably get hurt worse than any state in the\nnation,\u201d Lewis said last week. \u201cIt’s not like we will be\nfriendly faces to the feds, and they’re going to come in and do\nmajor damage to us. \u201d He’s certainly not an enthusiastic fan\nof Obamacare, but thinks the state has no choice but to accept the\nMedicaid expansion which was intended as compensation for what the\nnew law takes away.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWith Obamacare coming down the pike, if we don’t get some\nkind of relief in (Medicaid) expansion, we will face certain\ndeath,\u201d Lewis said last week.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAh, so the problem isn’t ObamaCare: it’s Gov. Deal’s refusal to\naccept Medicaid expansion!\nThe AJC warned us about that back in August:\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\nCarrie Teegardin wrote for the AJC 30 August 2012,\n\nDeal\u2019s Medicaid decision could put hospitals at risk<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nGov. Nathan Deal’s decision to reject the expansion of Medicaid\nprescribed by the Affordable Care Act would leave thousands of the\npoorest Georgians uninsured and threaten the bottom lines of\nhospitals that were counting on new income from the changes.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nMeanwhile, Georgia spends a billion dollars a year locking people up,\nand\n\ndoesn’t even do that well<\/a>.\nHow about stop locking up so many people so we can spend some of that\nmoney on education and health care?\nAnd stop spiting Washington by punishing rural people:\nget on with accepting Medicare expansion.\n<\/p>\n

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