As a result of the cut, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System is forced to reduce spending on discretionary programs to fund mandatory expenditures. The AHCCCS will redirect $7.8 million in aid to hospitals that serve uninsured patients and $8.8 million for graduate medical education to cover mandatory expenditures, according to the report.
Hospitals claim that cuts will mean that they will not be paid for services they are mandated to provide, such as providing emergency services to uninsured patients, and warn that if their funding is reduced, they will be forced to cut services.
Arizona already has fewer physicians per capita than the national average and hospitals expect the cuts to further aggravate the shortage. Arizona currently has 219 physicians per 100,000 residents while the national average is 293 physicians per 100,000 residents.
Read the Arizona Republic’s report on the Arizona Medicaid cuts.
