Dr.
Elaine Batchlor, CEO of MLK Community Hospital in Los Angeles, already knows what will happen if her hospital closes.
All she has to do is remember King Drew, a similar safety net hospital that provided care to a large share of low-income patients in the same neighborhood, that closed in 2007 because of safety and quality problems.
The low-income neighborhoods in South Los Angeles were without a hospital for almost a decade.As a result, other hospitals in the area saw higher volumes of patients and more uninsured patients; one hospital’s share of uninsured patients more than tripled, from about 13% to nearly 45%, a study found.
This redistribution of sick people led to severe overcrowding in other hospitals and higher costs for insured patients.Now, Batchlor and many other hospital adm…
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