The Latest Breaking News from Ge Bai

Congress poured billions into hospitals through advances on Medicare claims, but now some medical providers are struggling to pay it back. 

POTTSTOWN, Pa. — The public school system here had to scramble in 2018 when the local hospital, newly purchased, was converted to a tax-exempt nonprofit entity.

A hospital's cost calculator said her procedure would be $1,400 for patients without insurance. Instead, the bill was almost $18,000 and, her part was more than $5,000 — the balance of her deductible.

DARLINGTON, South Carolina — Just off the deserted town square, with its many boarded-up businesses, people lined up at the walk-up pharmacy window at Genesis Health Care, a federally funded clinic.

MEXICO, Missouri — When the new corporate owners of two rural hospitals suddenly announced they would stop admitting patients one Friday in March, Kayla Schudel, a nurse, stood resolute in the nearly empty lobby of Audrain Community Hospital: “You’ll be seen; the ER is open.”

HAMMOND, Ind. — In 1898, three nuns took a train to this city along the south shore of Lake Michigan to start a hospital.

The Catholic hospital system that runs Franciscan Health Hammond closed Franciscan St. James Health in Chicago Heights in 2018, also citing low demand for inpatient care even as it’s built new hospitals in wealthier suburbs.