Below are five facts about the charity care funding reduction.
1. In 2014, New Jersey hospitals provided $570 million in charity care to uninsured patients, down nearly 50 percent from $1 billion in 2013, according to a report released by Health Commissioner Cathleen Bennett.
2. In response to declining charity care levels, New Jersey lawmakers began to reduce charity care funds to match the lower demand for charity care services. The budget for fiscal year 2016 provided hospitals with $502 million in charity care support, a $148 million reduction from 2015, according to NJ Spotlight.
3. New Jersey’s fiscal year 2017 budget, which Gov. Chris Christie signed July 1, reduced charity care funding by another $200 million, allocating $302 million in funding to be distributed between 64 state hospitals. Gov. Christie line-item vetoed what would have been an additional $25 million in state charity care funding — and a matching $25 million in federal funding — before signing the budget this month.
4. In 2017, only 13 hospitals will receive more charity care funding than they did in the year prior, according a hospital funding summary from the N.J. Department of Health. These facilities include four Hackensack (N.J.) UniversityMedicalCenter campuses.
5. Many hospital leaders have criticized continued decline in charity care funding, arguing that Medicaid reimbursements are insufficient to cover the costs of care and that charity care funding is still necessary to support safety-net hospitals.
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