Warning Flag for Obamacare?

BMC trims ICU beds - White Coat Notes - Boston.com: 'BMC trims ICU beds
E-mail|Link|Comments (0) Posted by Elizabeth Cooney October 6, 2009 05:35 PM

Boston Medical Center is reducing its intensive care beds by eight and consolidating the remaining 66 beds in two inpatient buildings as part of a plan to control costs in the face of significant financial losses, the hospital confirmed today.

'These actions are part of Boston Medical Center�s ongoing efforts to reduce costs and provide efficient, quality care,' hospital spokeswoman Ellen Berlin said in an e-mailed statement. 'Since BMC�s inception, we have managed critical care patients in two inpatient buildings, with ICUs on both sides of our campus. We will continue to provide the same level of care in both inpatient buildings.'

Forty nurses, certified nurse assistants, and support staffers are affected by the move, but seniority provisions in their union contract will dictate whether they will lose their jobs or move to other positions in the hospital.

Boston Medical Center, which before the cuts expected to lose $178 million in the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, filed a lawsuit against Massachusetts in July, accusing the state of illegally cutting payments made to the hospital for treating thousands of poor patients. After the state passed its landmark law mandating near-universal health insurance coverage, it phased out special payments to Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Hospital, another safety-net hospital. The state has said its actions comply with applicable laws.'

What worries me about this is that the incipient health plans look very mush like the Mass plan in assuming that universal care will permit a decrease in funding for 'charity.' That promise would be true if we went to single payer but in the proposed approaches everything depends on how quickly a complex insurance pool extends its cover over patients like this. As long as the insurance companies have the freedom NOT to insure folks like this, someone needs to pick up the tab and Obama's hope for savings may never happen.."