After state GOP representatives refused to expand Medicaid, and enacted punitive abortion laws causing a dearth of Ob-Gyns and new resident physicians from settling in our state, Alabama is facing the consequences of its own actions. But we all will pay the price.
WBRC More than a dozen Alabama hospitals are at immediate risk of closing after suffering $1.5 billion in losses due to unreimbursed pandemic expenses, the uninsured who are unable to pay for their healthcare, low Medicare reimbursement rates, and low insurance reimbursement.
We are on a collision course for disaster. Alabama has lost 14 hospitals since 2011.
While Alabama is about to spend $1 Billion in COVID funds for a prison after refusing to expand Medicaid, a major Alabama hospital is possibly closing.
Montgomery Independent Rumor has it that Montgomery is under threat of losing Jackson Hospital, a 344-bed acute care hospital that employs 3,000 people and includes the Jackson Clinic and well as Jackson Imaging and Surgery Center. Reportedly, Jackson Hospital in huge financial trouble and near bankruptcy; if Jackson closes, it will be the largest closure in Alabama in 15 years.
Losing Jackson Hospital would devastate Montgomery and the surrounding counties, many of which have lost their own hospitals. In fact, 3 Alabama hospitals closed their maternity wards in October 2023 alone.
This means pregnant mothers in many county must travel for hours for care, putting both mothers and babies lives at risk. Alabama has the third-highest maternal mortality rate and the sixth-highest infant mortality rate, with Black mothers and infants being overrepresented in these statistics.
Giving birth is a dangerous enterprise in Alabama. But this affects more than women of reproductive age. It affects everyone.
It means less doctors and hospitals to attend to ordinary maladies such as broken bones, car accidents. Less specialists such as gastroenterologists, and internists, more advanced disease. It means months before you can see a doctor to diagnose that potentially cancerous lump, critical in saving your life.
This is the result of Alabama's GOP conservative policies coming home to roost.
It’s time to lean on our elected officials and force them to think of us all. The Republican Super-Majority remains opposed to expanding Medicaid. Yet, the hospital closures will affect all citizens across racial, income, and political party lines.
Instead of spending $1 Billion on a prison, Alabama could expand Medicaid and decrease the likelihood of rural hospital closures by 62%.
We need your help in sounding the alarm.
Contact your State Representatives and let them know that it is imperative that we stop the death spiral of Alabama's hospitals.
Contact Your State Representatives
The decisions made by our elected officials have consequences for us all.
Because the next time, its not someone else's’ daughter and their baby dying during birth. Or someone else's Dad not getting treated for his heart attack, or someone else's Mom not been treated for cancer. It's you not having a bed to receive care in after that devastating car crash or no physician available for your appendectomy. None of us is immune.
Thank you for your support!
The Alabama Democratic Party