Without Funds, NJ Hospitals Face Crisis

[MountainLaurel]

If the country is facing a nationwide health-care crisis, then the condition in New Jersey can be described as gravely critical.

The state has an estimated 1.3 million people without health insurance who cannot pay a doctor or a hospital bill. New Jersey law requires that hospitals treat anyone who walks through their doors, and then get reimbursed later by the state. But the state's looming budget shortfall has forced it to cut back on the reimbursements, leaving hospitals to pick up the tab. And hospitals, in turn, are going broke: Six have closed in the past 18 months, and half of those remaining are operating in the red.

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The situation has come to a head in this city of 48,000 people -- majority black, largely poor and with many new immigrants moving in. The city's hospital of 130 years, Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, is slated to become the latest casualty of this faltering system, closing its acute-care facility later this year. The obstetrics and pediatrics wards have already shut, and equipment is being packed up and wheeled out.

The hospital says it lost $16.8 million last year and will lose another $18 million in 2008, leaving its owners little choice but to close it down. But news of this latest closure has hit hard for those in Plainfield and surrounding towns who have come to rely on Muhlenberg. Many are elderly, some have chronic conditions, and they will now have to travel as far as 10 miles away for care.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070602334.html?hpid=topnews

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