Hospitals continue to report a significant drop in their number of uninsured patients as Obamacare coverage takes full effect, boosting their bottom lines, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.
Hospital Corporation of America, the biggest for-profit hospital network in the country, reported a 6.6 percent decrease in uninsured patients across its 165 hospitals, according to Bloomberg. And in the four states where HCA operates that expanded Medicaid, the drop was 48 percent.
LifePoint Hospitals reported that the percentage of its patients paying for their own care declined from 7.1 percent to 4.8 percent over the last year, according to Bloomberg.
Those trends have led to a brightening financial outlook for the companies, according to Bloomberg. Both HCA and LifePoint increased their fiscal forecast recently as the increase in paying customers became clear. LifePoint specifically estimated that Obamacare added $13 million to its total earnings in the second quarter, 40 percent above its expectations.
Hospitals were one of the key stakeholders backing health care reform during the legislative debate, and the law now seems to be paying dividends for them. These new uninsured figures track with some previous reports from hospitals which, particularly in the Medicaid expansion states, have seen a steady decline in their uninsured patient population since January.
damn those hospitals, don’t they know that Obamacare is a job-killing, debt-rising, socialistic monster?
This was expected. Now, let’s hope the for profits use these newfound resources to hire more staff and improve quality. That was also an intended benefit of health care reform.
Surely an impeachable offense.
Thus: saving the hospitals billions per year.
And when the hospitals aren’t taking losses for caring for they uninsured, there is no cost-shift (shift costs to people WITH insurance). Each year, the average family pays $1,200 more for insurance, because of cost-shifting to care for uninsured. The government pays a ton of money because hospitals shift costs to Medicare and Medicaid.
This news means money is being saved (federal and state budgets, along with individuals).
So, of course, Republicans are against it.
Hospitals benefit from Obamacare? Heaven forfend!
Surely, we can sue someone to stop this travesty.