About The Issue
Providing health care services to those covered under Medicare and Medicaid is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge. Medicare and Medicaid reimburse providers less than the cost of providing services. To continue their mission – and avoid scaling back vital services – a further erosion of federal funding cannot be tolerated.
Earlier this year, President Bush called for more than $100 billion in cuts to the programs that support critical hospital services. A majority of both the House and Senate signed letters to congressional budget leaders urging them to reject cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs in their budget blueprints, and congressional leaders at that time heeded those calls.
However, the threat is still present. Hospital services are still at risk for cuts as the Administration, as well as Congress, look to cut these critical programs in order to finance other government spending and initiatives. Most recently the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cut more than $22 billion over the next five years in Medicare payments for inpatient hospital services. And those cuts come on the heels of nearly $4 billion in proposed cuts to the poor and elderly served by the Medicaid program.
Today, hospitals must be able to respond to disasters both natural and manmade, update facilities and technologies to better care for an increasingly aging population, and upgrade information technology for patient safety. And they always need to be ready to provide the care you need at any time, under any circumstance. At a time when our nation's health care system faces these and other very serious challenges, cuts that threaten vital services are dangerous for all of us.