Bates White, LLC, United States.
J Health Econ. 2010 Jan;29(1):87-109. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2009.10.006. Epub 2009 Nov 10.
We present a new framework for assessing the effects of hospital closures on social welfare and the local economy. While patient welfare necessarily declines when patients lose access to a hospital, closures also tend to reduce costs. We study five hospital closures in two states and find that urban hospital bailouts reduce aggregate social welfare: on balance, the cost savings from closures more than offset the reduction in patient welfare. However, because some of the cost savings are shared nationally, total surplus in the local community may decline following a hospital closure.
我们提出了一个新的框架来评估医院关闭对社会福利和当地经济的影响。虽然当患者失去获得医院的途径时，患者的福利必然会下降，但关闭医院也往往会降低成本。我们研究了两个州的五次医院关闭事件，发现城市医院的救助会降低总体社会福利：总的来说，关闭医院带来的成本节约超过了患者福利的减少。然而，由于一些成本节约是在全国范围内共享的，因此在医院关闭后，当地社区的总剩余可能会下降。
