Governor Sonny Perdue announced the cuts as part of $442 million in reductions to the state budget, taking the total budget down to $17.7 billion, the lowest it has been since 2005-2006, according to the report. Georgia’s fiscal year begins July 1.
Gov. Perdue says he was forced to make the cuts after lawmakers worked against a proposed 1.6 percent fee on hospitals’ revenues. According to the report, the Governor believes the hospital fee would be the better option rather than the cuts proposed in the current version of the budget.
Officials from the Georgia Hospital Association are opposed to both solutions proposed by Gov. Perdue. The Association originally disliked the fee, because legislation permitted the tax to go as high as 5.5 percent, which many hospitals feared it would reach, according to the report. Likewise, the Association says steep Medicaid cuts will force many hospitals to reduce staff or to shut down.
Read the Business Chronicle’s report on the Georgia budget’s healthcare cuts.
