The nationwide economic recession is pushing Michigan hospitals "to the brink of a fiscal crisis," according to a report released on Thursday by the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, the Detroit News reports. According to the report, state hospitals in the third-quarter of 2008 posted low and negative profit margins, in part because of losses from uncompensated care and the fall of the credit market (Rogers, Detroit News, 2/6). Hospitals incurred bad debt of a record $2 billion, the report found, while uncompensated care for the third quarter increased by 8% compared with the same period in 2007 (Anstett, Detroit Free Press, 2/6).

The report found that between 1999 and 2007, the number of state residents with private health coverage declined by 727,000, while the number of Medicaid beneficiaries grew to a record-high 1.6 million. Meanwhile, funding for hospitals that treat Medicaid beneficiaries declined by more than $850 million between 1996 and September 2008, the report found (Detroit News, 2/6)…