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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (134390)	6/22/2013 8:50:36 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Uncompensated medical care payments to hospitals going down; this could have interesting consequences in the teabag states. Mo. A case in point, major payment cuts to medical and psychiatric hospitals under Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments are on the horizon in 2014 under the ACA. DSH payments are federal funds given to hospitals that provide a high volume of uncompensated care to poor people and to Medicaid and Medicare patients (each program has a separate DSH payment program). The presumption is that the number of uninsured will drop considerably under ACA Medicaid Expansion, and so will those payments to hospitals for uncompensated care. Theoretically, without Medicaid expansion in Missouri, hospitals that currently rely heavily on DSH payments are bracing for a deep cut – although the numbers of persons needing the care will remain steady. “The impact this time is that we lose so much money from the DSH cuts – that you will see a substantial reduction in both in jobs and access across Missouri,” Freund said. stlamerican.com Fla The Affordable Care Act assumed that all states would expand Medicaid rolls and the number of uninsured would shrink, Kramer said, so the federal government is phasing out the funds for uncompensated care. That will work in 24 states that are moving forward with plans to expand Medicaid, Kramer said. But in 20 states, including Florida, that have rejected Medicaid expansion, the cost of uncompensated care won’t shrink and the cost will be borne by large employers. So while the Affordable Care Act was designed to reduce the cost of health insurance by insuring more people, in states that reject Medicaid expansion, Kramer warned, the opposite will happen. miamiherald.com = Pa When the uninsured go to the emergency rooms in local hospitals in need of care, hospitals are obligated to provide that care even without compensation. Currently, federal and state uncompensated care payments help cover those costs so that hospitals can keep their doors open. However, federal uncompensated care payments are slated to be significantly reduced because Medicaid expansion is offered to the states. This loss, without the gain in a Medicaid payment, could threaten the existence of some hospitals. At the same time, Pennsylvania would save up to $1 billion, over 10 years, in state uncompensated care costs if we expand Medicaid, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. Further, the cost of uncompensated care also is reflected in higher health insurance premiums for those who are insured, driving up costs for businesses that provide health insurance coverage and their workers who typically share that cost. No wonder that Ohio Gov. Kasich concluded: “This reform [Medicaid expansion] not only helps improve the health of vulnerable Ohioans and frees up local funds for better mental health and additional services, but it also helps prevent increases to health care premiums and potentially devastating impacts to local hospitals ...” pahouse.com