Nationally ranked hospital victim of universal healthcare

One News Now (Link) - Pete Chagnon (July 20, 2009)

A tax policy analyst from The Heritage Foundation says Massachusetts can provide an example of what Obama's healthcare reform can bring to America.

Boston Medical Center has sued the state of Massachusetts over the state's universal healthcare system. According to The New York Times, the 626-bed hospital -- which is the primary teaching facility for Boston University School of Medicine -- faces a $38 million deficit and will lose close to $100 million more in the coming year. Hospital officials say the shortfall is due to the state's universal healthcare system which forces them to cover the healthcare costs of poor people. Another factor is that the state has lowered its Medicaid reimbursements.

Curtis Dubay is with The Heritage Foundation. "I think that what's going on in Massachusetts is a good example of what will happen at the national level," he shares. "The cost savings that President Obama and Congress are promising simply won't materialize."

Dubay says much of the burden of covering the cost of Obama's healthcare reform falls on small businesses and the rich in the form of massive tax hikes.

"A policy that lowers costs does not require economically painful tax hikes -- and second[ly], built into that tax hike are further tax hikes if the savings don't materialize that they say will," explains the analyst. "[T]hey already know that these savings aren't coming, so they already preemptively baked tax hikes into the cake."

According to Dubay, if Obama's healthcare plan is passed, the U.S. could see more hospitals in the same situation as Boston Medical Center.

BMC appears in rankings being released this week in U.S. News & World Report's annual publication of America's Best Hospitals. Of 174 medical centers nationwide, BMC ranks 21st in geriatrics care, 24th in rheumatology, and 40th in diabetes/endocrine disorders.