Under the new healthcare law, approximately 32 million more Americans will have health insurance by 2014. In conjunction to an aging baby boomer population and a shortage of physicians, Dr. Pardes said the demand will put a great amount of pressure on academic medical centers, which also provide a large majority of charity care as well as care to undocumented individuals. Failure to cover undocumented individuals — estimated to be $6.4 billion in 2000 — poses great financial burdens to academic medical centers and “compromise some of the laudable goals of health reform,” he said.
“Health reform mandates $155 billion in Medicare cuts for hospitals over the next decade, $50 billion of that in reduced ‘dish’ payments for uncompensated and charity care,” Dr. Pardes said. “These cuts were agreed to by hospitals to help fund the ACA. The expectation was that the expansion of coverage will offset that reduction. In some places that will be true. But it won’t happen in states like New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania that had extensive Medicaid programs in place before ACA was passed.”
Read the hospital news report about Dr. Herbert Pardes’ thought on healthcare reform.
Read other coverage about healthcare reform:
– Medical Office Building Market Could Benefit From Health Reform
– Donald Berwick Blasts Medicare Vouchers, Defends Reform Law
– New Budget Deal Targets Two Reform Measures
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