Healthcare Roundup: Pandemic Downside of Hospital Cost-Saving Success, Biden Vaccine Mandate Concern & More

Cost Cutting has Made Hospitals More Vulnerable to Pandemic:

Hawaii has one of the lowest hospital bed per capita rates in the nation, at 1.9 beds for every 1,000 people. The state is now out of intensive care beds, with half of the 223 total statewide occupied by COVID-19 patients. And Gov. David Ige (D) has just signed an executive order providing hospital administrators immunity from liability for rationing care.

Driven by health policies that encouraged the reduction of hospital beds and the treatment of patients in lower cost settings, the number of hospital beds in the United States dropped 40 percent - from 1.5 million to 898,000 - between 1975 and 2015, while the nation’s population grew by 48 percent.

Larry Levitt, an Oakland-based health policy research director for the Kaiser Family Foundation, said we’ve been “very successful at caring for people outside hospitals” but that success hasn’t come without a cost.

“It saved money but it left us very vulnerable in a pandemic,” he said. “Our health care system is largely profit-driven and there was no money or incentive to provide excess capacity in case a pandemic hit.” (HONOLULU CIVIL BEAT)

Healthcare Associations Support Biden Vaccination Mandate but with Reservations:

In a sweeping plan unveiled this month the Biden administration mandated that all healthcare workers get vaccinated for COVID-19. Healthcare associations praised the policy, acknowledging the importance of vaccination in dealing with the pandemic, but also expressed concern it may worsen workforce shortages, particularly in rural areas where vaccination rates among healthcare workers are lower.

At Houston Methodist, one of the first hospital systems in the nation to implement its own COVID-19 vaccination mandate, 153 workers either resigned or were terminated after that requirement took effect. A big hospital might be able to absorb such a loss but it would have a major impact on a small, rural hospital, said Alan Morgan, chief executive officer of the National Rural Health Association. (USA TODAY)

FL has Most Nursing Home Resident, Staff COVID-19 Deaths:

Florida had the highest number of nursing home resident and staff deaths due to COVID-19 in the nation during the four-week period ending on Aug. 22, according to analysis by AARP. The state accounted for 21 percent of the total number of nursing home resident deaths and 17 percent of staff deaths due to the virus nationwide during that time. (TAMPA BAY TIMES)

WI Home to Greatest Racial Birth Disparities:

Wisconsin leads the nation in racial birth disparities, with black babies there three times more likely to die than white babies. About a third of the black babies die before birth, a third die of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, and a third die of “other causes.” (WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO)

Lack of Support from Moderate Dems Kills Pelosi Drug Pricing Bill in Committee:

Three moderate Democrats on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee voted against an aggressive drug pricing package backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). With Republicans on the committee also opposing the measure, it failed to advance to a full vote in the chamber. (STAT, KAISER HEALTH NEWS)

-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK