Do the mandates help? With cash stricken hospitals, to meet goals for the appropriate number of nurses per patient, cuts are made in other areas such as technology purchases and medical record updates, infection control, etc. and the hardest hit are the government and non profit hospitals. California is the only state that has a mandate on the issue, however others are considering the same. BD 
Some California hospitals had a tough time hitting the staffing mark, however — particularly “safety-net” facilities that care for the poor and uninsured. Just 11.4% of the 332 hospitals studied had fewer than one nurse for every five patients in 2004. Nearly all of those were urban non-profit and government hospitals, or facilities with a high proportion of patients on Medicaid or without insurance. Many were losing money, presumably crimping their ability to hire.
Hospital administrators will also tell you that poor hospitals may ramp up staffing to avoid regulatory trouble; but in return they’ll have to skimp elsewhere, perhaps on infection control, record-keeping software, or other staffing. “They may decide, sure, we’ll give you one nurse to four patients, but then everything else has to go,” says Rose Gonzalez, an American Nurses Association lobbyist.
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/06/20/nurse-staffing-mandates-are-no-quality-panacea/
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