... by about 20 years. Toward the end of the hospital systems I spoke of the only other funding coming into them than the local tax base was from Medicaid. Without that funding stream the hospitals would simply have closed earlier. Many of the private hospitals would not accept Medicaid patients and simply shunt them to the public hospitals. As the public funding dried up the public hospitals became more reliant on Medicaid patients because there was at least someone to bill and contribute to their revenue stream.