Rural hospitals are closing maternity wards

[MillCreek]

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/02/24/467848568/more-rural-hospitals-are-closing-their-maternity-units?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science

The other interesting thing that they failed to mention is the cost of malpractice insurance for delivering babies, for both the hospital and the medical providers.  Unless you have a sufficient volume of deliveries to amortize the cost over a good-sized number, you are paying a tidy figure per delivery just for the insurance.  I would agree, however, that the primary reason is finding the medical and nursing staffing.

[roo_ster]

Medicaid pays for slightly under half of all births in the United States, but in rural areas the proportion is often higher, says Kozhimannil. Since Medicaid pays about half as much as private insurance for childbirth, "the financial aspect of keeping a labor and delivery unit open is harder in rural areas," she says.

I do suspect this has much to do with it, along with gov't interventions of other sorts that drive up costs. 

[makattak]

Medicaid pays for slightly under half of all births in the United States, but in rural areas the proportion is often higher

Think about the implications of this beyond the article.

Roughly half. HALF of all births in this country are to individuals whose income is 133% percent of poverty. Keep in mind that only 20% of the nation is on medicaid, additionally.

Now, let's add that to the other problems associated with poverty: absent fathers, drug abuse, hostility to education, et al... and this is a signal of significant problems for the next generation, given that those factors have tended to lock children into the poverty cycle of their parents.

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And now for the extremely cynical view. HOORAY! Another problem to be ignored by our myopic, selfish, pleasure NOW!!11!! society!

[roo_ster]

Welcome to Uh-merica.

Where the future inhabitants are surly third-world descent ethnics living off the carcass of a formerly great nation.  Sort of like bedouin "mining" the great edifices of Alexandria for marble & stone to erect their rude dwellings.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7ck2AQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA726&ots=zFsJQa1oxP&dq=arabs%20stealing%20great%20building%20for%20stone&pg=PA726#v=onepage&q=arabs%20stealing%20great%20building%20for%20stone&f=true

Another source of weakness is to be found in the Arab instinct for appropriating the remnants of older buildings The plentifulness of Roman ruins furnished an inexhaustible store just fitted to Arab requirements Eager but careless it suited them far better to steal columns and capitals from classic structures than to cut and carve them for themselves Countless are the buildings from the Great Pyramids to Roman baths and palaces which the Arabs impartially rifled and most of their mosques are in large measure many of them entirely constructed of such fragments This of course however involved the hasty adaptation of all sorts of structural features to 905i tions which they had never been meant to occupy and this process of adapm tion in Arab hands is a very rough and ready one Shafts are rudely broke ed to shorten them or are propped on blocks of stone to lengthen them Again and again I have noticed in the mosques of Egypt and X01111 Africa wedges of wood carelessl v 11am mered in between shafts and capitals to raise the latter to the right 19 Sometimes the capitals chipped and defaced as they mostly are are set 011 upside down the cracks and rents in them being patched up with coarse mortar Evidently speed counts for more

[MechAg94]

I think I heard someone joke that it is getting to the point that Neal Diamond albums are more common in black households in the US than two parents. 

[makattak]

I think I heard someone joke that it is getting to the point that Neal Diamond albums are more common in black households in the US than two parents.  

Off the top of my head, I believe it's 20% of black children are born into a family with a married mother and father.

[BlueStarLizzard]

This may be just some weird idea I picked up, but aren't high risk pregnancy and deliverys more common these days?

 I would imagine a lot of those rural areas have a high rate of mothers with drug and drinking problems and teenage pregnancy. Plus, at the other end of the age spectrum, many woman are having babies as they get older. All things that contribute to higher risk pregnancies that require more care and more specialization than a local general practitioner would have.

[BlueStarLizzard]

BTW, guys, I'm betting most of the rural areas being discussed the majority of the population is white. So the Neil Diamond joke was probably unnecessary. 

[makattak]

BTW, guys, I'm betting most of the rural areas being discussed the majority of the population is white. So the Neil Diamond joke was probably unnecessary. 

Additionally, black children only make up 16% of births, so even if every single black child was born on medicaid (note: they aren't, but hypothetically), they wouldn't even make up half of the births on medicaid.

Speaking from experience, there are a lot of white "families" that fit my description of "absent fathers, drug abuse, hostility to education, et al..." It's a universal problem: more prevalent in minority communities, but afflicting all races, to varying degrees.

[Mannlicher]

that is terrible.  Where will the illegal aliens go to have their babies?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Additionally, black children only make up 16% of births, so even if every single black child was born on medicaid (note: they aren't, but hypothetically), they wouldn't even make up half of the births on medicaid.

Speaking from experience, there are a lot of white "families" that fit my description of "absent fathers, drug abuse, hostility to education, et al..." It's a universal problem: more prevalent in minority communities, but afflicting all races, to varying degrees.

Less variance now than ever.  Sadly


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