"Reform pits city hospitals vs. rural; Smaller facilities seek more funds" by Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | July 19, 2009
WASHINGTON - The intense competition is among the key political subplots in the debate over expanding healthcare coverage....
Large, urban teaching hospitals - including hospitals that are the biggest engines in the Boston economy - are facing the possible loss of hundreds of millions of dollars under national healthcare reform as rural lawmakers on Capitol Hill wage a fight to win more federal cash for their local institutions.
Big hospitals affiliated with medical schools around the country receive heftier reimbursements for treating elderly patients covered by Medicare, part of a government policy that rewards them for maintaining things such as trauma centers and burn units, as well as for training future generations of doctors.
Rural members of Congress, however, angry at what they see as an unfair advantage to glitzier facilities in cities, are demanding a bigger share of the pie for smaller hospitals, which serve remote populations and often struggle to survive....
Oh, like mine?
Although Republicans have stronger representation in the nation’s heartland, it’s not simply a red state-blue state divide. Plenty of rural Democrats think the current system - which favors facilities such as Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Mount Sinai in New York - is unfair.
I would have to agree with them.
“This is a very urban bill,’’ fumed Representative Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which passed the healthcare overhaul bill Friday. “Could it be improved? Could it be more rational? Of course.’’
But Representative Michael Capuano, a Somerville Democrat, said any attempt to strip a portion of Medicare money from teaching hospitals would be a deal-breaker for House members from cities. He said teaching hospitals offer more advanced medical services and should be compensated accordingly.
“Should every hospital do brain surgery, or only a handful?’’ he said. “It would be like saying: Let’s move all the farms to Somerville.’’
Well, Partners could quit overcharging us, Mike!
Related: Defense Lobbyist Had Ear of Congress
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With its more urban demographics, Massachusetts has no rural hospitals and an unusually strong presence of teaching hospitals, making the debate especially critical for the Bay State.
Pfft!
We DON'T EVEN EXIST to the Globe out here -- until NOW!
About half of all hospital admissions in Massachusetts go to teaching hospitals, compared with a national average of 18 percent, said Donald J. Thieme, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals.
The rural-urban battle exposes the often deep regional differences in Congress, with lawmakers of like political ideology squaring off on discreet local issues.
Then PLEASE EXPLAIN the UNITY of the GOVERNOR'S!
The hospital Medicare reimbursement dispute is just one of many such issues that could upset the coalition required to pass the healthcare overhaul bill before the August recess, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, has promised to do.
Failed!
Bay State lawmakers say they have no problem giving more money to rural healthcare, but they don’t want it to be taken away from teaching hospitals, which are critical to the state’s economy.
Yeah, as if it were THEIRS to GIVE and NOT TAXPAYER DOLLARS!
What ARROGANCE!!!!
Since the healthcare bill is already expected to cost more than $1 trillion over a decade, there will be tremendous pressure to get the cash to satisfy rural congressmen from some existing source. Otherwise, Congress will have to find new revenues....
Related: Why Obama Wants A Health Care Bill This Year
Yup, you are going to get a TAX BILL, nothing more, 'murka!
Rural hospitals argue that they serve higher percentages of elderly and low-income patient populations, and therefore rely more heavily on government reimbursements, said Alan Morgan, chief executive of the National Rural Health Association.
From Massachushitts, let me be the first to say it -- FUCK the POOR (unless they are illegals)!!!!
Government reimbursements for North Country Health Services in Bemidji, Minn. - the only hospital available in a 100-mile radius - amount to less than 80 percent of costs, said Jim Hanko, the hospital’s chief executive. Instead of providing “perfect’’ services, the northern Minnesota facility “has to be realistic and say we can only afford essential’’ services, Hanko said. Other rural hospitals, he warned, might not survive without more help.
What did I say above? Banks get a bailout, right?
But teaching hospitals argue they provide crucial services for the entire country, not just their regions. They not only train physicians - including those who go to smaller communities to practice - but conduct research and cutting-edge medical procedures that help everyone, said John Erwin, executive director of the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals....
Yeah, well, WE HAVE the $$$ -- it is just being spent ON OTHER THINGS like WARS!!!!
Erwin could not estimate the financial impact of a formula change on Massachusetts’s teaching hospitals, but noted that approximately half of the facilities’ patient revenues come from Medicare and Medicaid, a federal-state program for the poor.
We are so ripping you off, rest of the U.S.
I'm sorry; I don't even want the loot anymore.
Representative Richard Neal, Democrat of Springfield and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, noted that people travel to the Bay State for advanced and specialized care.
He recently learned that a colleague, Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, had back surgery at Georgetown University Hospital. “I said, ‘Why did you go there?’ And he said, ‘They have great care.’ I said, ‘That’s why people choose Massachusetts,’ ’’ Neal said.
But HE DIDN'T COME HERE!!
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Btw, here is something you might want to know about CONGRESSIONAL HEALTHCARE that YOU PAY FOR, taxpayers:
