You’re close to being correct in saying that this will bankrupt hospitals because patients will tend to avoid them while treating Ebola and afterwards. I know this first-hand. Wife just had a diagnostic procedure and decided not to go to Dallas Presbyterian, even though that is where her doctor normally practices.
However, there’s another reason: the affected hospitals lose their entire ER revenue flow. ER is normally a hospital’s cash cow. Even if they maintained normal patient flow in other hospital operations, they go bankrupt.
If Dallas Presbyterian had not mishandled the Duncan case initially, I’d say that they had a huge claim on the Federal government for its incompetence. However, both Dallas Presbyterian and Obama Administration deserve blame for this blunder ... a potentially world-historical blunder that could make hospital bankruptcies a footnote in 21st Century history.
Yes and no. ER can be a huge money loser for a hospital, depends on the payer mix. If you have a large No Pay uninsured population, and large Medicaid (welfare) population you can lose lots of money. I recently worked in an ER where 1/3 of the patients were no pay, we say almost zero revenue out of them, and they were probably the most demanding patients we saw, as mother of one patient told us “spare no expense I want nothing but the best for my (27yo) Baby!....
Dallas Presbyterian is done. It will be torn down.
As more cases come in, you will have doctors and nurses fleeing. People will opt out of going there, and HMO’s will write them out of the system.