In Washington…
Abandoment of an economic stimulus package poses a setback for attempts to bar HHS from further curtailing the Medicaid upper payment limit and for the proposal to increase the federal Medicaid matching rate. Both provisions were included in the Democratic version of the stimulus bill.
The FY 2003 budget that President Bush has proposed includes a $3.7 billion (15.7 percent) increase in NIH spending. That would bring the total appropriation for the program to $27.3 billion. The administration assumes that the FY 2003 increase would be the last installment in the effort to double the NIH budget and proposes that funding increase only for inflation in future years. As it did last year, the Administration also proposes to reduce the salary cap. Congress rejected that idea last year.
Unless Congress acts this year, teaching hospitals will experience a large reduction in their indirect medical education payments, there will be a 15 percent cut in payments to home health agencies, and reductions in Medicaid DSH payments will take effect. The Bush budget does propose to spend $3.7 billion on a 6.5 percent increase in payments under Medicare+Choice, considerably more than the 2 percent increases that have been the norm in urban areas for the past few years. The Bush plan includes a modest prescription drug proposal for seniors, which has been criticized as inadequate by Democrats.
The proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) includes about $6 billion in funding for chemical- and bio-terrorism preparedness including $518 million for hospital preparedness and $100 million to train health care professionals, poison control centers, and emergency medical services for children. Under the proposal, hospitals would have to coordinate with state preparedness plans.
Worth noting…
- The Bush budget proposes to cut graduate medical education funds going to children’s hospitals by $85 million to a total of $200 million.
- The first of the bio-terrorism funds appropriated last year by the Congress are making their way to Massachusetts with $21.6 million in staged allocations. A portion of the money is devoted to enhancing hospital readiness, improving communication, and upgrading disease reporting.
- Partners’ Network President Ellen Zane recently made a round of visits on Capitol Hill to talk with key staffers about the better care that patients can receive under Medicare+Choice and the need to reform the program before it collapses from underfunding (Partners physicians care for 38,000 moderate-income seniors under the Tufts Secure Horizons plan)
And on Beacon Hill…
The Joint Health Care Committee held a hearing in February to look into hospital financial distress and pending hospital closures, especially the issue of CareGroup’s decision to close or sell Deaconess-Waltham Hospital. Witnesses included a panel of representatives from the Swift Administration, CareGroup, Partners, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Nursing Association, the MHA, BU Professor Alan Sager, and the Save Waltham Hospital Coalition. Newton-Wellesley’s
Les Selbovitz, MD, represented Partners.Worth noting…
Governor Jane Swift froze $90 million in previously approved state spending, including $66 million from smoking cessation programs, $10 of the $15 million in distressed hospital funds and $2.8 million for a cervical and breast cancer program.