New Study: Healthcare Focusing on Profitable Services,
 Not Cost Controls or Access for the Uninsured

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The latest trend in healthcare – focusing on such lucrative specialties as orthopedics and cardiac care – is not making healthcare more efficient, cheaper or accessible, just more profitable for hospitals and physicians, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Studying Health System Change, known as HSC.

"Hospitals’ obsession with profits over patients is taking a new and dangerous path.  They’re  concentrating on sure-fire profitable services while neglecting less lucrative care, failing to rein in spiraling costs and leaving the uninsured without adequate access to primary healthcare," said Edward J. McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers.  AFT Healthcare represents 65,000 nurses and other healthcare professionals nationwide. 

Every two years, HSC conducts site visits in 12 nationally representative communities to study how the healthcare market has changed.  The communities in 2005 were Boston; Cleveland; Greenville, S.C.; Indianapolis; Lansing, Mich.; Little Rock, Ark.; Miami; northern New Jersey; Orange County, Calif.; Phoenix; Seattle; and Syracuse, N.Y.

The most recent study found that hospitals and physicians are competing intensely for profitable specialty services, making costly investments to expand capacity, and offering the latest medical technologies, especially in affluent, well-insured areas.  Yet, the report found, employers and health plans have few new initiatives to control rising costs.  Also, private physicians are more reluctant to treat low-income patients because of low reimbursements, and specialty physicians are not anxious to provide on-call coverage at hospitals because of their lucrative private practices.

"We can’t keep sweeping these problems under the rug and acting like they don’t exist.  This country needs real health reform that will contain costs and provide equal access to quality healthcare,  regardless if you’re living in wealthy suburbia or in the city," McElroy said.

AFT Healthcare, a division of the AFT, represents more than 65,000 nurses and other healthcare professionals.

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