Not to mention covid animal reservoirs... Assuming that is still a thing. Haven't looked it up since September to see if we have come to a new understanding.
I believe most hospitals are either operating as non-profit organizations, or barely making a profit each year. Your thought of ‘let’s pay the workers more… economics 101!’ Is true but only achievable at a nationwide scale through the government stimulus checks (or tax credits) you’ve described because of the hospitals themselves tried increasing staffing at higher cost rates they would collapse into financial ruin almost immediately.
My understand of the economics behind hospitals is that their revenue stream is essentially fixed based on what insurance (private or public) will reimburse. As you’ve noted above, our hospitals are currently busting at the seems and they are doing it with their least finically profitable patients. Is it any surprise to hear that ‘stay here while we monitor you’ doesn’t get reimbursed as highly as elective procedures do? If you look at how much cost goes in to caring for someone with COVID and compare that against the reimbursement rate you’d see that each COVID patient LOSES money for a hospital.
Hospitals are only as big as they are, and if they need extra space for COVID patients there are few options: take over critical care facilities (your ERs, ICUs, etc…), take over non-critical care or elective facilities (hallways, clinics, etc…), or expand to larger buildings (warehouses, gymnasiums, etc…). While we’ve seen flavors of all 3 over the last 18 months, they all have their own costs. I haven’t heard of a strong public outcry to go back to the days when our COVID care was administered at your local high school just so hospitals could get back to making money by scheduling nose jobs and pacemakers (you know, the high dollar elective procedures)… instead hospitals have been cutting in to their high-profit footprint in order to service the no-profit immediate need and as a result are completely upside down on their financials.
Excess money solves many problems, and hospitals wish they had plenty of it right now.
Another approach to the tax credit / stimulus check idea may be to mandate insurance companies to increase their reimbursement rates for COVID care up well beyond what is actually needed to cover the costs. I don’t know enough to know if there is any mechanism for the government to force a wide variety of private insurance companies to increase their costs though, seems like it would be easiest to control those types of dials if there was only a single payer. Maybe a single payer that was also the government, and as such could act in the best interest of public health instead of the bottom dollar.
The whole first half of this piece was frustrating (because it felt so defeatist) but did seem to ring truer with each passing paragraph. Just because we want a path to ‘beat’ this pandemic doesn’t mean there is one. Cracking everyone who disagrees with me over the head for making decisions that won’t effect the outcome is fruitless and does nothing to foster a community I CAN trust and rely on.
I haven't read it all yet, but the title had me applauding IRL.
Not to mention covid animal reservoirs... Assuming that is still a thing. Haven't looked it up since September to see if we have come to a new understanding.
Oh, no, yeah, animal reservoirs appear to be a thing now.
Wonderfully written piece! Top to bottom! I especially want to commend whoever provided that thought-provoking and pathos-filled comment
I believe most hospitals are either operating as non-profit organizations, or barely making a profit each year. Your thought of ‘let’s pay the workers more… economics 101!’ Is true but only achievable at a nationwide scale through the government stimulus checks (or tax credits) you’ve described because of the hospitals themselves tried increasing staffing at higher cost rates they would collapse into financial ruin almost immediately.
My understand of the economics behind hospitals is that their revenue stream is essentially fixed based on what insurance (private or public) will reimburse. As you’ve noted above, our hospitals are currently busting at the seems and they are doing it with their least finically profitable patients. Is it any surprise to hear that ‘stay here while we monitor you’ doesn’t get reimbursed as highly as elective procedures do? If you look at how much cost goes in to caring for someone with COVID and compare that against the reimbursement rate you’d see that each COVID patient LOSES money for a hospital.
Hospitals are only as big as they are, and if they need extra space for COVID patients there are few options: take over critical care facilities (your ERs, ICUs, etc…), take over non-critical care or elective facilities (hallways, clinics, etc…), or expand to larger buildings (warehouses, gymnasiums, etc…). While we’ve seen flavors of all 3 over the last 18 months, they all have their own costs. I haven’t heard of a strong public outcry to go back to the days when our COVID care was administered at your local high school just so hospitals could get back to making money by scheduling nose jobs and pacemakers (you know, the high dollar elective procedures)… instead hospitals have been cutting in to their high-profit footprint in order to service the no-profit immediate need and as a result are completely upside down on their financials.
Excess money solves many problems, and hospitals wish they had plenty of it right now.
Another approach to the tax credit / stimulus check idea may be to mandate insurance companies to increase their reimbursement rates for COVID care up well beyond what is actually needed to cover the costs. I don’t know enough to know if there is any mechanism for the government to force a wide variety of private insurance companies to increase their costs though, seems like it would be easiest to control those types of dials if there was only a single payer. Maybe a single payer that was also the government, and as such could act in the best interest of public health instead of the bottom dollar.
The whole first half of this piece was frustrating (because it felt so defeatist) but did seem to ring truer with each passing paragraph. Just because we want a path to ‘beat’ this pandemic doesn’t mean there is one. Cracking everyone who disagrees with me over the head for making decisions that won’t effect the outcome is fruitless and does nothing to foster a community I CAN trust and rely on.
More reading https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/omicron-end-of-pandemic/621089/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab