For Immediate Release
Date: December 14, 2011
Contact: Liza Lowery
(315)559-9388
Rep. Buerkle Introduces Legislation
to Help Hospitals
to Help Hospitals
Washington, DC - Today, Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25) introduced the Help
Our Hospitals Act of 2011, which repeals a section of the President’s Health Care Law that cuts
Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to hospitals. ...
This is a legislative stunt. It is another Ann Marie Buerkle/Tea Party/Republican attempt to gut the 2010 Health Care Law and nothing more. Since the Health Care bill passed, Republicans have been intent upon defeating any comprehensive health care laws and with defeating President Obama with a crudeness that feels racist.
Our gal Buerkle is congenitally incapable of posing both sides of any complicated issue. In this instance, a Google search shows that the primary web sites concerned with this issue of Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to hospitals are large corporate law firms who represent hospitals.
The truth is that at this time no one can say with assurance what the total effect will be upon hospitals receiving DSH payments. Shifts in how care presently being paid for by Medicare are assured in 2014. The Health Care Law has the means to make up the difference to hospitals in other ways using more direct and simplified formulas. Buerkle is unwilling to recognize this publicly or to discuss it.
For a enlightening discussion of the effects of redistribution of risk that changes in health care will make upon hospitals receiving DSH funds, see this Brookings Institute paper.
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