Health Law Update - U.S. Hospitals to Contribute $155B to Fund Insurance Coverage
The nation’s hospitals have agreed to contribute $155 billion towards providing insurance coverage for Americans without health care, according to Reuters. The deal, which is expected to be announced by the White House today, was brokered between three hospital groups – the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, and the Catholic Health Association – and the White House, along with the Senate Finance Committee.
Most of the savings – about $100 – would be skimmed by reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals. Another $40 billion would be saved by slowly decreasing the amount hospitals receive to care for the uninsured, although the reductions would probably not begin for several years. This “waiting” will test whether a significant number of people will in fact enroll in the new insurance programs.
Hospital officials have been informed that if a new government-sponsored health care program is introduced, it will not pay Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement rates and will most likely be lower. The amount of Medicare/Medicaid payments is hotly contested in the health care industry, where most practitioners feel such payments do not adequately cover the costs of treatment.
The hospital deal was part of a discussion about the “shared responsibility” of the entire health-care system, patients, and the government, and comes only a few days after an announcement from the Obama administration that Medicare plans to cut payments to imaging services and specialists.
