Schumer Reveals: New Medicare Budget Cuts Would Cost Upstate NY Hospitals $700 Million - Releases Potential Effect Of Administration Cuts On All 120 U
Schumer Reveals: New Medicare Budget Cuts Would Cost Upstate NY Hospitals $700 Million - Releases Potential Effect Of Administration Cuts On All 120 Upstate NY Hospitals
Today, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer revealed that cuts to Medicare included in the Administration's budget, released on Monday, would cost upstate New York hospitals nearly $700 million over the next five years. The Administration's budget includes cuts that would reduce Medicare payments to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), and other providers. Today, at a Senate Finance Committee Hearing, Schumer will grill Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt for pushing such dramatic cuts upon struggling hospitals in New York and across the country.
"This budget gives the meat axe to upstate New York hospitals and I am going to fight it every step of the way," Schumer said. "Upstate New York hospitals depend on this funding to survive and such dramatic cuts would endanger the quality of care for years to come. We need to support our hospitals to ensure they can grow and modernize. Rather than strengthening the precarious position many hospitals are in, the Administration's budget risks further damage by weakening the programs hospitals rely on day in and day out."
Schumer's report, using information compiled by the Healthcare Association of New York State, details staggering cuts to hospitals large and small. The cuts proposed by the Administration and included in the analysis target hospital reimbursements for inpatient and outpatient care, nursing homes, and home-based health care. They include the elimination or reduction of legally required formula increases that seek to address the rapidly rising cost of health care.
Schumer stressed that these cuts are particularly damaging to hospitals' bottom lines because, as reimbursements are given out based on a predetermined formula, hospitals create their budgets based on what they expect the formula to generate for the next several years. The Administration's proposal dramatically and suddenly changes the formula, reducing significantly the level of support each hospital had expected from the federal government. Schumer said that there is no question that, should these cuts be enacted, upstate New York residents could see a decline in care and services.
The Administration's total nationwide cut to Medicare would translate to a $697,921,000 cut for upstate New York hospitals. New York State's hospitals have been operating at a loss for the last eight years in a row, but are targeted for drastic reductions in payments. The proposed cuts are larger than similar cuts Bush asked for in his previous budget proposals. Below is how the numbers break out across the state:
# Hospitals in the Capital Region would lose $77,856,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in Central New York would lose $62,009,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in the Rochester-Finger Lakes Region would lose $154,709,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in the Hudson Valley would lose $192,370,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in the North Country would lose $26,799,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in the Southern Tier would lose $52,963,000 over the next five years.
# Hospitals in Western New York would lose $143,773,000 over the next five years.
Schumer also raised serious concerns about the dramatic cuts posed to the Medicaid program, especially through the elimination of the Medicaid Graduate Medical Education program. The budget would cut an average of more than $550 million annually in support provided to New York teaching hospitals across the state, totaling $2.7 billion over the next five years. New York teaching hospitals, including SUNY Upstate, train one out of every seven doctors in this country.
Medical Education funding would also be targeted in the Medicare cuts, ending what the Administration calls duplicative payments under the Medicare Advantage program. When given the choice to end payments to either private insurance plans or hospitals, the Administration chose to end the payments to hospitals.
Schumer said that it is important, now more than ever, that New York teaching hospitals be able to attract new doctors because many communities across upstate New York are facing a critical shortage of medical personnel. Both Buffalo and Rochester are facing serious and growing shortages of doctors, particularly surgeons and general practitioners. The Buffalo Niagara region lost 10 percent of its doctors from 2001 to 2005, the largest drop in the state, including a 16 percent decline in the number of general surgeons and a 13 percent decline in obstetrician-gynecologists. Yet the Administration's budget goes one step further and even cuts the National Health Service Corps program, which provides financial incentives to doctors who practice in areas with shortages. Both medical education cuts and the National Health Service Corps cut would exacerbate the growing doctor shortages in upstate New York.
Schumer added that the cuts detailed in his report represent a small portion of the total cuts to federal health services and coverage. The President proposes $10 billion less for the Children's Health Insurance Program than is needed merely to continue covering the children who are already enrolled. He also proposes to scale back eligibility requirements to twice the federal poverty level. This would hurt children in New York's program, called Child Health Plus, which currently covers children up to 2.5 times the federal poverty level.
In response to these dramatic cuts that could reduce the quality of care across upstate New York, Schumer today will grill HHS Secretary Leavitt at a Senate Finance Committee hearing and called on the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee to reverse these cuts in the Congressional Budget to be released this spring.
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/record.cfm?id=269575