Hospitals Flee Poor Areas

"Ascension's approach to the Detroit market is an increasingly common strategy among nonprofit hospital systems: Close money-losing facilities in poor areas where a large share of patients are uninsured, and build or refurbish hospitals in affluent places where people have private insurance coverage.

Nonprofit hospital systems have shuttered facilities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Newark, N.J., while spending billions on suburban expansions. This all comes as large nonprofit chains have been enjoying some of their most prosperous times ever."