Medical Infrastructure - Hospitals, Hospital Merger Aftermath: Secular Vs. Religious Values?, Hospital Closures And Access To Health Care

The population of the United States is increasing. At the same time, the number of hospitals is decreasing. Hospital closures and mergers are creating potentially dangerous situations across the country. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): the merger of religiously controlled (specifically Catholic) hospitals and secular hospitals present a particular threat to women's health care. But is this a Catholic vs. secular values issue or did this "threat" start long before the first merger between a Catholic and a secular hospital?

Hospice care was envisioned to be "something between a hospital and a home, with the skills of one and the hospitality, warmth, and time of the other."¹ The next two panels present the history of hospice care in America and discuss the influence government intervention has on this hospice care concept.

Both Medicare and Medicaid have been under scrutiny recently as the cost of health care soars. Will the millions of elderly and poor continue to receive health care coverage in the future?

Drug and vaccine shortages are becoming an increasing problem. The next panel discusses the consequences of drug companies halting (or slowing) the manufacture of certain drugs. We also discuss what the Food and Drug Administration is doing about these shortages. In October 2001, bioterrorism became a concern as anthrax was spread through the mail system. Will drug manufacturers be able to produce enough vaccines or antibiotics if a large-scale bioterrorism attack plagues the United States?

Before September 11, 2001, the government focused on health care reform. The skyrocketing costs and the millions of uninsured were on the minds of many. Some of those in the health care profession said that administrative costs, especially those associated with insurance company paperwork, accounted for an increasing share of a patient's health care dollar. In the final panel of this chapter we discuss the medical vs. non-medical costs of health care.