On Thursday, October 26, 2023 ZeroHedge posted 65 Hospitals Closing Departments Or Ending Service, by Tyler Durden.

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This simply reproduced an article in Becker’s Hospital CFO Report.

Of the list, 26 stipulate that they are closing maternity and obstetrics operations. Some emergency rooms are being closed as well.

The post lacks ZH’s usual analytical input. But this is provided by their commentators, generally far superior to those in other publications.

Hethen437 said:

My wife had a baby about a year ago the wing was full of probable illegal aliens.  I figured the hospital got paid nothing from them.  We paid $6,000 out of pocket and the insurance paid $100,000 when I got the EOB I realized I paid for those illegals.

A large part of the reason medical bills for even straightforward procedures are so ludicrously high is that for many years charges have been shunted onto the insured from patients who cannot/will not pay. Surprisingly, many do not appreciate this.

AnnesBallpointPen said:

Maternity and [Labor & Delivery] services are money-losers as the young (and illegal) mothers typically cannot pay the bills, so those units close.

Replying to a post wondering why many hospitals were citing lower birthrates flykiller said:

”expecting a sharp decline”

more likely they’re expecting (heck, experiencing) lots and lots of third world mothers with major complications who don’t pay anything.  they’re closing before they’re required to treat and eat the loss.

This was seconded by RHMS:

Was thinking along the same line.

Illegals, 5.5 million have crossed border since Biden was installed.

The don’t have insurance, hospitals can’t afford to birth babies for free

This is an excellent point. Hospital administrators will have heard of Biden’s Rush. The number of young alien women eager to steal maternity services from the dumb Gringos as soon as they can must be at an all-time record.

Snblitz summarizes the model well:

In California the state mandated that hospital emergency rooms provide care regardless of the person’s ability to pay.  So the poor turned the local ER into their General Practitioner. Lines grew and grew for non-emergency ”care”.  Eventually the hospitals shut down their ER departments.

California effectively reduced the ER care the poor can get to near zero

This is a timely reminder that first in the sequence of suffering from this atrocity are poor Americans—about whom the Democrats no longer care.

Obviously, when a hospital is under financial pressure, the riskiest and economically most volatile department is most endangered. The prospect of the inevitable surge in birthing bandit mothers must be giving hospital CFOs nightmares.

But they are afraid to say so. Not one of the statements accompanying these closures even hints at the issue. Even though the ZH  commenters prove it is well known.

Welcome to the Land of the Free.