University of Chicago.
National Taipei University.
J Health Polit Policy Law. 2021 Oct 1;46(5):785-809. doi: 10.1215/03616878-9155977.
The CARES Act of 2020 allocated provider relief funds to hospitals and other providers. We investigate whether these funds were distributed in a way that responded fairly to COVID-19-related medical and financial need. The US health care system is bifurcated into the "haves" and "have nots." The health care safety net hospitals, which were already financially weak, cared for the bulk of COVID-19 cases. In contrast, the "have" hospitals suffered financially because their most profitable procedures are elective and were postponed during the COVID-19 outbreak.
To obtain relief fund data for each hospital in the United States, we started with data from the HHS website. We use the RAND Hospital Data tool to analyze how fund distributions are associated with hospital characteristics.
Our analysis reveals that the "have" hospitals with the most days of cash on hand received more funding per bed than hospitals with fewer than 50 days of cash on hand (the "have nots").
Despite extreme racial inequities, which COVID-19 exposed early in the pandemic, the federal government rewards those hospitals that cater to the most privileged in the United States, leaving hospitals that predominantly serve low-income people of color with less.
2020 年的《关怀法案》向医院和其他医疗机构分配了救济资金。我们研究了这些资金的分配方式是否公平地回应了与 COVID-19 相关的医疗和财务需求。美国的医疗保健系统分为“有”和“没有”。已经经济薄弱的医疗保健安全网医院承担了 COVID-19 病例的大部分。相比之下，“有”的医院在经济上受到了打击，因为它们最赚钱的手术是选择性的，并且在 COVID-19 爆发期间被推迟了。
为了获取美国每家医院的救济基金数据，我们从 HHS 网站上的数据开始。我们使用 RAND 医院数据工具来分析基金分配与医院特征的关系。
我们的分析表明，手头现金天数最多的“有”医院每床收到的资金比手头现金少于 50 天的医院（“没有”）多。
尽管 COVID-19 在疫情早期就暴露出了极端的种族不平等现象，但联邦政府奖励那些迎合美国最特权阶层的医院，而留给主要为低收入有色人种服务的医院的资金却更少。
