The decline in numbers of public hospital makes it harder for the poor and uninsured to receive medical services, as they could not afford to got to for-profit hospitals. We may predict the average health status in the population going down as the result. Before considering the impact, let's try to make it clear the reason for decline.
I searched step by step and got an acceptable answer. First, why are public hospitals shutting down? One answer would be that they are facing bankruptcy as it's hard to run without making any profit, also the funding from government is quite limited. This is absolutely right, but there's another factor deteriorating the situation: increase in uninsured. As public hospitals are the best choise for them, they are actually accelerating the financial crisis in public hospitals.
Here comes the next question: why are numbers of uninsured increasing? The first word that comes to my mind is: unemployment. Since employer-sponsored insurance is a basic approach for most working population, and rising insurance premiums are a heavy burden for an individual or a family, it's easy to understand those who lose jobs to be uninsured and go to public hospital. For those employed, there's also a problem. Many new firms are reluctant to introcduce health insurances as "It’s much better for employee morale if a small-business owner never offers health benefits, than it is to offer them and then be forced to take it away because it is too expensive to continue". So, the uninsured rate is also increasing in employed population.
If we go deeper into this, we would find that it's all connected with economy. It has a great influence on the health care system. So things always come together: unemployment, fewer income, less access to medical care, worse health status.
Remedy the health care system is acceptable but not the best way, what we would like to see is the economy going up.
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