Of course, the paper cares about something else.
"Waves of suffering; Patients struggle on without surgery; hospitals feel pinch" by Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | May 4, 2009
As the economic recession persists, people who are unemployed or worried about losing their jobs are putting off medical care and living with illnesses and conditions that aren't critical, but can be debilitating. Some are delaying having precancerous tumors removed; others are forgoing knee or shoulder surgery. While insurance often covers much of the costs associated with such procedures, there are usually deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses that can add up to thousands of dollars. For those lacking insurance, the price of most elective procedures is beyond their reach....
And as more people forgo treatment, hospitals are suffering financially, industry specialists say. Their profits depend heavily on lucrative surgical procedures paid for by private insurers. In addition to seeing fewer patients for elective day-surgeries and overnight treatments, hospital income from investments is dramatically down because of the economy. Profit margins at Massachusetts hospitals have dropped from an average of .7 percent in the last quarter of 2008 to .3 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to the hospital association.
To compensate, hospitals are cutting jobs, and canceling or postponing expansion projects. Nursing jobs, once abundant, for the first time in a decade are in short supply.
"Surgery is a very large cost and profit center for a hospital," said Erica Drazen, a managing partner at CSC, a Virginia-based hospital consulting firm with offices in Waltham. "It's almost a perfect storm: elective admissions are down, people with insurance coverage are down, donations are down and investment income [for hospitals] is down," Drazen said. "None of the CEOs are laughing."
Neither are we!!!!Not after they have looted us for years!
Here is another couple not laughing about it: Waves of suffering
