ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The debate continues in Washington over the Big, Beautiful Bill which includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP funding ever. Local hospitals and health centers are bracing for potential cuts that could result in millions of dollars in losses.
UR Medicine and Rochester Regional Health say it’s too soon to know specifically how the cuts will impact them but at least one local health center has crunched the numbers.
Willie Murphy, 87, has been a patient at Jordan Health for more than a decade, “I didn’t even know I had high blood pressure until I came here,” Murphy says. While she’s on Medicare now, she’s worried what the proposed cuts to Medicaid could mean other patients at Jordan Health who are covered by it, “poor people benefit from being able to get Medicaid,” she says, “my neighbors in my community are poor.”
Dr. Linda Clark, CEO of Jordan Health, says more than 60% of patients at the Center are covered by Medicaid. “We don’t have huge salaries, we don’t have fancy gadgets and things like that but we do have proven great quality health care and a very efficient way so we’re like the best deal in town for primary care,” Dr. Clark says.
If the proposed cuts to Medicaid go through, Jordan Health is looking at a loss of about $1.3 million per year. “Everybody talks about the health-related social needs or the social determinants of health, that’s always been what we do but we need Medicaid to make it happen because a lot of the services don’t get paid for,” Dr. Clark says.
Under the house bill, the majority of those who would lose Medicaid coverage are people who became eligible under the Affordable Care Act. Those enrollees would face new work requirements unless they have an approved exemption. Republicans say it’s mostly able-bodied adults who don’t work who will lose Medicaid but Democrats say it goes far beyond that.
“The Medicaid budget is exploding, in just 10 years we have doubled our Medicaid budget from $30b to $60b, I mean you’re talking about… we’re spending more money on Medicaid then we spend on educating our children in k-12,” says Rep. Claudia Tenney, (R) 24th Congressional District. “We have 8 million people on Medicaid out of 19 million people in the State of New York, we’re roughly about 5-5.5 million who are actually eligible, all this bill does… we do not cut Medicaid, all we do is say that you have to have work requirements.”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, says the work requirements are a front to add red tape into the system in hopes that people will just give up. “People will lose their benefits not because they’re ineligible but because of all the paperwork,” Sen. Gillibrand says. “We already know that because some states have tried to do this and they do save money and the way they save money is people don’t get health care, millions of people don’t get health care that keeps them alive.”
The added verification steps are what’s worrisome to Dr. Clark as well, “with the difficult requirements to re-up that every few months to prove your income or that you’re working, all those may impact our ability to see those people and to make the revenue we need to take care of everyone,” she tells News10NBC.
Health centers and hospitals won’t be able to look to the state for a bailout, “NYS taxpayers can’t make up the difference but here’s what we can do, NYS taxpayers actually save money by making sure that the Medicaid dollars that flow from the federal government to the state of NY get invested in preventative medicine, that’s what we need to be able to keep doing,” says NYS Senator Jeremy Cooney. If not, Senators Cooney and Gillibrand say the trickledown effect will impact us all, “it’s going to cripple a lot of our hospitals, our safety net hospitals will have to continue to give care to people who need it because that’s their mission and they just won’t be compensated for it,” Sen. Gillibrand says.
*AI assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses AI*
Local hospitals/health centers brace for millions in losses from proposed Medicaid cuts as debate continues in Washington WHEC.com.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Local hospitals/health centers brace for millions in losses from proposed Medicaid cuts as debate continues in Washington )
Also on site :
- Stocks rally and oil dips after report says Iran is looking to de-escalate its conflict with Israel
- Beloved Country Star Announces 9 New Performances
- Ryne Sandberg rookie card, dozens of other items in Illinois treasurer auction