A bill that would delay implementation of Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) and Medicare DSH payment cuts for two years now has 46 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.
H.R. 1920, the DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2103, would delay for two years the DSH cuts mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
The rationale underlying the proposal is that between some states choosing not to expand their Medicaid programs as the reform law envisioned and the delay in imposing the mandate for businesses to help their employees with health insurance, the expected rise in the rate of insurance will be slower than expected and hospitals that care for especially large numbers of low-income patients will have a greater need for DSH revenue than originally anticipated.
Because they serve so many more low-income patients than the typical acute-care hospital and Pennsylvania is not among the states planning to expand eligibility for Medicaid, the state’s safety-net hospitals are especially interested in this issue and have conveyed their support for the bill both to Congress and to the administration.
Read more about the proposed DSH delay bill and its prospects for passage in this CQ HealthBeat article presented by the Commonwealth Fund.