President Obama’s 2014 budget recommends delaying a significant cut to a program that helps hospitals treat the uninsured.
Georgia health care officials are welcoming the move.
Obama’s budget calls for a one-year delay in reductions to Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, or DSH payments.
Hospitals depend on the payments to help recoup the cost of treating the insured.
Julie Ellen Windom, a lobbyist for the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals, says a reduction to the DSH program could mean some hospitals go out of business.
“It affects your large hospitals – [like Grady Hospital and Northeast Georgia Medical Center] – that treat large uninsured and Medicaid populations, and it affects your small rural hospitals that have a lot of uninsured that don’t have a lot private pay to offset what they’re losing.”
Five hundred million dollars of DSH cuts were planned under the president’s health reform law. That’s because beginning in 2014, the law mandates health coverage for everyone, making the DSH program less necessary.
However, the Supreme Court last summer ruled the federal government couldn’t force states to expand their Medicaid programs under the law. When given the option, many Republican governors, including Georgia’s, decided to opt out.
Windom is pleased about the proposed delay of DSH cuts, even if it’s just a temporary solution. In the meantime, her organization wants Gov. Nathan Deal to reconsider his opposition to the Medicaid expansion.
“If you are going to roll back DSH payments, then something’s got to be done to cover that gap if Medicaid is not expanded. We’re just not sure we’ve heard any solutions for covering that.”
Through a spokesman, Deal says DSH funds are “very important” to hospitals and hopes the Obama administration will work with states that opt out of the expansion.
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