Hospitals on the Brink Dramatize Charity Health-Care Struggles

Charity hospitals in suburban Chicago and East St. Louis, Ill., have asked for state permission to close, further signs of the economic downturn’s impact on health care for the poor, according to the Associated Press.

So-called safety-net hospitals that serve primarily poor and often uninsured patients have been closed in Florida, Georgia, New York, and Pennsylvania in recent years as the recession forced more people to seek free care while strapped state governments cut back on aid to the hospitals and delayed Medicaid reimbursements.

Jim Tallon, president of the nonprofit United Hospital Fund of New York, said charity hospitals can “finesse” bad economic times for a year or two but “now everybody’s used up all their tricks. That’s when people throw their hands up in the air and say we’re not going to be able to continue operating.”