Medicare cuts Archives - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

House to Set Sights on Medicare, Medicaid Cuts in 2018

The House of Representatives will pursue entitlement spending cuts next year, House Speaker Paul Ryan recently explained on a radio program.
That means Medicare, Medicaid, and possibly even Social Security.
Ryan said that

We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit… Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.

Medicare and Medicaid cuts would be very harmful to Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals.
Learn more about Ryan’s remarks, the administration’s priorities, and what other members of Congress are saying about entitlement cuts in this Washington Post story.

PA Safety Net Admin2017-12-14T06:00:33+00:00December 14th, 2017|Federal Medicaid issues, Medicare|Comments Off

Medicare Cuts May be Part of Budget Deal

The agreement between the White House and congressional negotiators on a two-year budget deal and an increase in the federal debt ceiling will be paid for in part with reductions in Medicare payments.
Under the reported agreement, negotiators agreed to increase federal spending $80 billion over two years, and that increase will almost certainly need to be offset by spending cuts. The New York Times has reported that “The Medicare savings would come from cuts in payments to doctors and other health care providers.”
The budget agreement reportedly did not include specific spending cuts beyond extension of the current two percent Medicare sequestration cuts, although the publication The Hill reports that site-neutral Medicare outpatient payments may be part of the agreement; the additional cuts will need to be negotiated within Congress.
To learn more about the budget agreement and its possible implications for health care providers, see this New York Times article and this report from The Hill.

PA Safety Net Admin2015-10-27T16:31:46+00:00October 27th, 2015|Medicare|Comments Off

SNAP Asks PA Delegation to Protect Safety-Net Hospitals in Budget Talks

As the congressional budget conference committee begins its work, SNAP has asked members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to urge their colleagues serving on the committee to protect the state’s safety-net hospitals from any further Medicare and Medicaid cuts.
In the message, SNAP notes the significant Medicare and Medicaid cuts the state’s safety-net hospitals have already suffered and warns that further cuts could jeopardize access to care in communities across the commonwealth.
Read SNAP’s message to the Pennsylvania congressional delegation here, on the SNAP web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-10-30T06:00:36+00:00October 30th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania, Uncategorized|Comments Off

PA Officials Estimate Sequestration’s Impact

Now that federal budget sequestration has taken effect, Pennsylvania state officials are busy calculating its potential effects on various health-related state activities.
As part of planning for sequestration, officials have developed estimates in a wide variety of areas, including cuts in substance abuse programs, meals for low-income seniors, food programs, immunizations, AIDS/HIV screenings, medical tests for women and children, and more. They also are looking at how much Pennsylvania health care organizations will lose in research funding and how many jobs might be lost across the state as a result of significant reductions in federal spending under sequestration.
For Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, the biggest problem will be a two percent cut in all Medicare payments.
For a closer look at the anticipated impact of sequestration on these and other aspects of health care spending in Pennsylvania, see this article in the Pittsburgh Business Times.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-04T06:00:17+00:00March 4th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Medicaid Safe, White House Aide Says

While the Obama administration is willing to discuss further Medicare cuts as part of a broader effort to reduce federal spending, it opposes any further cuts in Medicaid, according to a White House aide.
Speaking at a Families USA conference, economic advisor Gene Sperling explained that the administration now opposes even the Medicaid cuts it proposed last year but is willing to negotiate changes in Medicare that could result in reduced spending on that program.
Read more about the White House’s emerging priorities in this article from The Hill.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-02-04T06:00:00+00:00February 4th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Western PA Hospitals Worry About Fiscal Cliff, Part 2

No sooner did hospitals in western Pennsylvania breathe a sigh of relief over escaping the worst possible scenarios in the fiscal cliff crisis than they looked ahead and saw the fiscal cliff sequel: March 1, when all Medicare payments will be cut two percent unless Congress acts to prevent that reduction.
With Medicare accounting for 40 percent, 50 percent, and even 60 percent of revenue in some western Pennsylvania hospitals, providers are concerned about the impact the two percent sequester could have on their overall financial health.
Such a loss would be especially hard to bear for the area’s safety-net hospitals, which typically have fewer insured patients than other hospitals and therefore are more dependent on their Medicare revenue.
Learn more about why western Pennsylvania hospitals are concerned about March 1 in this Pittsburgh Business Times article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-01-09T06:00:09+00:00January 9th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Will Fiscal Cliff Deal Make Medicaid, Medicare More Vulnerable?

The relative lack of spending cuts included in the fiscal cliff/Medicare doc fix deal passed by Congress last week could increase the pressure to reduce costs in key safety-net programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Or so some policy analysts believe.
Many members of Congress supported the fiscal cliff bill only reluctantly because of it lacked the bigger spending cuts they sought, the thinking goes. Now, with another fiscal cliff deadline looming on March 1, when the previously passed sequestration law takes effect, many who compromised last week will be demanding bigger cuts in exchange for their vote.
As a result, Medicare and Medicaid, two of the federal government’s fastest-growing expenses, are expected to be targets for those in search of cuts. In addition, Medicare has proven to be among the first places many officials look in their search for savings.
Any attempt to implement additional reductions in Medicaid and Medicare, beyond those already scheduled to take effect through the Affordable Care Act and last week’s fiscal cliff bill, would be especially damaging to Pennsylvania’s private safety-net hospitals.
Read more about how last week’s budget solution is far from the end of the threat to Medicare and Medicaid in this Boston Globe article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-01-08T06:00:47+00:00January 8th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Sequestration Could Cost Health Care Jobs in PA

Unless Congress reverses the sequestration of $2 billion in Medicare funding by the end of 2012, that cut in federal Medicare spending could result in the loss of nearly a half-million health care jobs across the country in 2013 alone.
And more than 37,000 of those lost health care jobs could be in Pennsylvania.
So says a new report sponsored by the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Nurses Association.
The cuts are mandated by the Budget Control Act, which Congress adopted late last year. While discussions are under way in Congress to block or delay implementation of the sequestration cuts in Medicare, defense, and other spending areas, it is not clear at this time whether those efforts will succeed.
It also is not clear what cuts the federal government will make to save the required $2 billion.
Any large-scale job losses associated with reduced federal Medicare spending would no doubt hit Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals hard because of the large numbers of Medicare patients they serve and their already-thin operating margins.
Download the report describing the impact of the $2 billion Medicare sequestration on health care employment here and read more about the prospects for health care jobs in Pennsylvania in this Pittsburgh Business Times report.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-09-14T06:00:31+00:00September 14th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

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