sequestration Archives - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

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

Sequestration Could Hit Southeastern PA Hospitals Hard

Hospitals in southeastern Pennsylvania could lose $50 million in patient revenue a year if the scheduled sequestration of federal spending takes effect on March 1.
At that time, all Medicare payments to hospitals would be cut two percent.
In addition, hospitals in that region could lose another $41 million from a comparable cut in National Institutes of Health (NIH) spending.
Safety-net hospitals located in southeastern Pennsylvania would suffer a significant proportion of both of these cuts. Members of the Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) located in this region include the Albert Einstein Medical Center, Hahnemann University Hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hospital, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
To learn more about how sequestration could affect one group of Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals, see this Philadelphia Inquirer article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-02-27T06:00:15+00:00February 27th, 2013|Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Post-Election Diagnosis for Health Care

While President Obama’s re-election probably spells the end of talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act, many questions remain about how – and how completely – the health care reform law passed in 2010 will be implemented.
In the days following the election, observers are asking these and other questions.
In the article “Federal Deficit Talks Could Impact Obama’s Moves on Health Law,” Kaiser Health News speculates about the future of some of the more controversial and expensive aspects of the Affordable Care Act, including creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board; the extensive insurance subsidies for which many Americans will be eligible; the future of the medical device tax; and the law’s provisions that limit the degree to which insurers can charge higher rates for older people.
The Stateline web site looks at the decisions ahead for state governments in the article “Obama Win Means Big Health Care Decisions for States.” Many governors still have not declared whether their state will expand their Medicaid programs – a move required by the Affordable Care Act but made optional by the Supreme Court in a June 2012 decision.
The first issue that will be addressed, though, is state decisions on whether to create their own health insurance exchanges, a key part of the reform law, or let the federal government create those exchanges for them. States are required to inform the federal government of their intentions by November 16, although it now appears they will be given more time. Pennsylvania is among the states that have not yet declared their intentions.
Meanwhile, looming over the health care industry is the prospect of sequestration, part of last year’s deficit reduction compromise, that leaves Medicaid untouched but will require a cut of two percent in all Medicare payments beginning on January 1 unless Congress acts to prevent these cuts. Read more about this in an article from The Hill titled “Sequester Would Cut $11 Billion from Medicare.”
These and other issues are of particular importance to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals because of the especially large numbers of low-income and publicly insured patients they serve.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-11-09T10:42:28+00:00November 9th, 2012|Health care reform|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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