Saving Medicaid, saving lives

Ask any emergency room worker and you’ll find out that every day, more and more people arrive without insurance. Then, add the fact that more and more people are going into debt from medical bills, which now cause most of America’s personal bankruptcies. In some cases, this is because the individuals have no insurance, but just as often it is because the insurance comes with very high out-of-pocket costs—costs that many workers cannot afford.

Either way, both the people and the hospital are being stretched to the breaking point, with individuals going bankrupt and healthcare providers drowning in bad debt.

We now have a record number of people in this country without health insurance—45 million and climbing. We also have more and more people qualifying for Medicaid, the national health plan for the poor.

Against this background, you would hope that the federal government would realize we have a crisis and take action. Unfortunately, President Bush’s action is to propose a federal budget that would cut millions of dollars in Medicaid funding—cuts that could decimate our state healthcare programs. Cuts to Medicaid will seriously harm the hospitals and nursing homes, public and private, that we represent. As Medicaid is cut, the amount of money going to health providers is reduced. If the reimbursement to hospitals is reduced, they have more and more uninsured patients and bad debt, so the pressure increases to cut staff, salaries and benefits, and to restrict admission. And because Medicaid is the main source of all payment to nursing homes, cuts in this program threaten their very existence.

At a time when we need to insure more people, the Bush administration’s only proposal is to create health savings accounts or tax-free accounts so that people have to save their own money to pay for health costs. To use such an account, workers must have insurance with very high out-of-pocket costs and then hope they can save enough for the day they become ill, praying that they aren’t seriously ill too often.

Over the next few months, Congress will be debating the president’s budget. It is critical that we let our representatives in Congress know that our communities cannot afford cuts in Medicaid, and that we need real healthcare reform—not health savings accounts.

Our union will be joining with other groups, including the hospital and nursing home associations, to oppose budget cuts that would harm our institutions and members of our communities.

We know firsthand the impact of lower reimbursements. We know these cuts would cause our employers to reduce services and cut staff. We know the impact of growing numbers of uninsured. We also know that the uninsured suffer more and die sooner for lack of healthcare coverage. As healthcare workers, we have a moral obligation to save lives. Saving Medicaid and Medicare lies at the heart of that obligation.