Fracking Boom Overwhelming Hospitals With Uninsured Laborers

[marmar]

Posted by Tara Lohan at 2:58 pm
January 29, 2013

Fracking Boom Overwhelming Hospitals With Uninsured Laborers


This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.


There’s no doubt that fracking has turned North Dakota into a boom town (and a bright one, at that), but there has also been a fair bit of bust along with it. The most recent news comes from a story in the New York Times today about threats to the state’s health care providers.

John Eligon writes:

The furious pace of oil exploration that has made North Dakota one of the healthiest economies in the country has had the opposite effect on the region’s health care providers. Swamped by uninsured laborers flocking to dangerous jobs, medical facilities in the area are sinking under skyrocketing debt, a flood of gruesome injuries and bloated business costs from the inflated economy.

The problems have been acute at McKenzie County Hospital here. Largely because of unpaid bills, the hospital’s debt has climbed more than 2,000 percent over the past four years to $1.2 million, according to Daniel Kelly, the hospital’s chief executive. Just three years ago, Mr. Kelly added, the hospital averaged 100 emergency room visits per month; last year, that average shot up to 400.

And that’s not all. According to the Times, between 2006 to 2011 ambulance calls went up 59 percent and traumatic injuries increased 200 percent from 2007 until the middle of 2012.

The economic toll has been great. “The 12 medical facilities in western North Dakota saw their combined debt rise by 46 percent over the course of the 2011 and 2012 fiscal years, according to Darrold Bertsch, the president of the state’s Rural Health Association,” wrote Eligon. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/tara-lohan/fracking-boom-overwhelming-hospitals-uninsured-laborers

[benld74]

1. Find the name of their employer, send bill demanding payments, PERIOD! Take to court to collect,

JUST like a REAL citizen!!!