The Government Accountability Office publicly released a report September 19 entitled "Urban Hospitals: Factors Contributing to Selected Hospital Closures and Related Changes in Available Health Care Services."As noted in GAO's cover letter:"Hospitals play a critical role in delivering health care services to their communities. In 2022, nearly 30 million patients were admitted to approximately 4,500 general acute care hospitals nationally, and spending on hospital services accounted for about $1.38 trillion, nearly one-third of the $4.5 trillion in total health care spending in the U.S.[1] As of 2022, approximately half of U.S. general acute care hospitals were located in an urban area."There…
WHO: Health inequities are shortening lives by decades
May 15, 2025 A new report issued May 6th by the World Health Organization finds that "underlying causes of ill health often stem from factors beyond the health sector, such as lack of quality housing, education and job opportunities."According to the WHO, the new World report on social determinants of health equity shows that "such determinants can be responsible for a dramatic reduction of healthy life expectancy – sometimes by decades – in high- and low-income countries alike. For example, people in the country with the lowest life expectancy will, on average, live 33 years shorter than those born in the…