NYT: GOP Medicare Bill Hits New York Hospitals The Hardest

[CShine]

The debate in Congress on adding drug coverage to Medicare has largely obscured a parallel fight over whether the bill should cut or add billions of dollars in Medicare payments to hospitals, particularly teaching hospitals. New York has far more money at stake in that struggle than any other state.

Depending on how various House and Senate proposals are resolved, hospitals nationwide could see a net loss of up to $5.4 billion in Medicare payments over 10 years, compared with 2002 levels, $2.1 billion of that in New York, according to an analysis by the Healthcare Association of New York State, a hospital lobbying group. Part of that reduction would come from a cut of roughly 15 percent in payments made only to teaching hospitals, which are most heavily concentrated in New York.

Some Republican lawmakers called those figures exaggerated, but they agreed that the numbers are in the billions and that New York stands to lose the most.

The fight has pitted legislators from rural areas, whose hospitals would be helped most by the proposed changes, against urban colleagues whose hospitals stand to take the biggest cuts. And it has put several Republican congressmen from New York and a few from other Northeast states at odds with their House leaders, with some saying they might be forced to vote against the bill, drug benefit and all. The House passed its version of the bill in June by a single vote, along party lines, so defection by a cadre of Republicans could threaten final passage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/nyregion/09MEDI.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1065737059-uYn1wJzItPjW5PbCWz7BTg

[donotpassgo]

1. NY is a Democratic stronghold...

there gonna lose it in 04 anyway, so why bother helping them out. (GOP Strategy. Worked in CA with the lack of a bailout)

[zekeson]

2. Finally, something is being done about Healthcare

just stop paying for services and let people die on the streets. What visionaries!
:eyes:
:puke:

[Livadia]

3. I don't know much about this issue..

- but shouldn't hospitals be well-funded regardless of whether they serve urban or rural areas ? This article implies that the changes being proposed would benefit rural hospitals and at the same time cause urban hospitals to lose money. I think a proposal where all hospitals get the money they deserve would be more useful.

And anyway, since there was such a drive to help the citizens of New York after the terrorist strike, isn't it surprising that now the funding for their hospitals is being cut ? Especially since it's the uberpatriot Republicans pushing it ?

[carpetbagger]

4. This is an ongoing issue with funding.

Teaching hospitals get paid for the interns and residents they train. Very few residents train in rural areas. I did two years of my residency in a two-county area of 100,000 people, taking most of my call out of a 60-bed hospital. I'm pretty much the exception, however.

There's a line in the funding, Line 747, which provides the meat of rural training, especially for primary care, but that hasn't faired well since Bush took office. That, combined with increasing demand for specialty care, is reversing placement of housestaff in smaller hospitals, thus resulting in the Medicare teaching funds being concentrated in places like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, LA, and the like.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi Livadia!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: