Children’s hospitals are preparing for discounts in the Trump budget: shots

Republicans insist that President Trump’s discounts on Medikid aim to reduce fraud and obtain more beneficiaries of adults in jobs. But side effects may include less care for sick children.

Summary hospitals collectively, to lose billions of dollars in revenue as soon as the Trump law is enacted on a large scale and the entire spending law, according to the Children’s Hospitals Association. Children represent nearly half of the registered in Medicaid, health insurance in the state and health insurance for federal people with low income and disabled people, and the health insurance program for related children.

The law will reduce the spending of federal medical aid about 900 billion dollars For a decade.

“The reduction cannot be achieved” without directly affecting the coverage and care for the children of Arizona, especially the most vulnerable among them, “said Robert Mayer, CEO of Phoenix Children’s Pediatrics.

Trump’s law is locked up in place in place a lot, including the massive expansion of migration and the extension of tax reductions that are largely the richest Americans. The cuts in Medicaid are expected to compensate in partially the cost of the president’s priorities, which will add more than 3 trillion dollars to the country’s deficit, according to the Congress Budget Office. About 7.5 million Americans will lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 as a result, according to CBO estimates.

During discussions on this measure, Republicans insisted that Medicaid discounts will only affect uncomfortable adults registered in the program who do not work and live in the United States without legal status. ““Our legislation maintains Meet. “We will get rid of fraud, waste and abuse.”

Nevertheless, Mayer warned that unless some discounts are reversed, Phoenix children will lose about $ 172 million annually of payments that complement the regular medical aid revenues for the health system, to treat children with low incomes covered by insurance. Medicaid usually pays lower rates of care for commercial insurance or Medicare, the federal program for people between the ages of 65 years and over.

Discounts mean “long -term winds” for hospitals

Additional payments, known as the state’s payments, are largely funded by Federal taxpayers through complex tax arrangements It was adopted by almost all countries. Mayer said that the payments helped the Phoenix regime to open additional pediatric clinics, increase mental health staff, and examine children for abuse and other shocks.

Trump’s ruling would determine the amount of directed payments that countries can provide to any hospital, including those children. But the cover, which does not apply until 2028, will be gradually eliminated within more than a decade – and hospitals are already pressing to ensure that this does not happen. Days after voting for the Trump Law, Senator Josh Holie, R. Mao, Legislation This would eliminate the provisions of the measure to reduce Medicaid payments for hospitals.

If the law does not change, at least 29 states will need to reduce their payments, according to KFF analysisIt is a non -profit health information that includes KFF Health News.

On average, Medicaid funds constitute more than a third of the Total Medicals Revenues for Children’s Hospitals and about 14 % of Operating Revenue in general, according to the Children’s Hospitals Association.

Richard Park, Director of Fitch, Credit Classification Agency, said Midikid financing provides “long -term winds” to children’s hospitals. Hospital officials say that if the payments are cut and the countries are not funded, they may be forced to reduce employees and services.

Park said: “The services provided by hospitals that require longer acceptance or less revenues will be at the intersection,” said Park.

Children’s hospitals are especially vulnerable to changes in Medicaid because they depend on the program for about half of their revenues-a much higher percentage of acute public care hospitals.

However, most children’s hospitals are in good financial condition, because they face a little competition – there are rarely more than one or two in an urban area – and strong charitable support. Funding discounts will not affect almost all the children’s hospital in the country.

In 2023, Phoenix Children had a $ 163 million surplus, about $ 1.5 billion of revenues, according to the approval of the tax department tax for 2023.

Under the law, the additional payments in the province of Colombia and 40 states that expanded Medicaid under the Welfare Law at reasonable prices will be directed at the rates of medical care to pay. Ten cases that have not expanded will be able to pay up to 110 % of medical care prices.

The Biden administration allowed the states to pay what private insurance companies do, on average. This is generally about 2.5 times the medical care rate, according to KFF.

Traditionally low fees from Medicaid can make doctors, dentists and other specialists hesitate to treat patients in the program.

Brian Plus, head of the Governor Paraguce Institute and the main architect of changes in the new law, said that cutting the state’s payments to him is justified because the countries should not push hospitals to treat medical aid patients more than they do for medical care patients. Unlike the regular Medicaid payments for specific health services, hospitals do not always bear responsibility for how to spend additional money, he said.

He said that the payments directed at the state to the hospitals of children and other facilities reach “corporate care”, and often strong institutions are often helping to become richer.

The state of differences to the state: Virginia, Texas, Arizona

Blase said that the states have a little incentive to pay the hospitals less because the money from the payments directed to the state mostly comes from the federal taxpayers.

In Norfolk, Virginia, the Children’s Girls Hospital in the Daughters of the King depends on more than $ 11 million annually in the state’s payments to make up for what you say is a lack of low payment rates in Medicaid and the cost of advanced care.

“It will have dangerous and long -term consequences for our services, programs and patients.” “AdICAID’s additional financing helps us pay the price of medical, surgical and psychological doctors specializing in children who need to care for each child who needs our services.”

In the fiscal year 2023, King’s girls achieved a $ 24 million surplus of $ 646 million in revenue, according to its federal tax approval.

Warnsul said that the Kings’ girls used the additional Midikid funds to expand treatment for assaulting children, neglecting them and mental health services.

How countries differ from the additional payments made to hospitals. For example, the director of Utah Midikid Jennifer Strocker said that her mandate does not track how to spend money.

Other states, such as Texas, are used as money as a incentive for hospitals to improve their performance in treating patients. They follow the quality of the facilities every year and publish the results in general reports.

Matthew Cook, president and CEO of the Children’s Hospital Association, said that even with additional financing, Medicaid does not cover the full cost of treatment for her patient.

Cook said that while some children’s hospitals have strong budgets, supported by charitable work, this is not the case for everyone. He said that the discounts in financing medical aid come at the top of the cuts in other federal payments, including to train doctors and research.

In Phoenix for children, Mayer said that the loss of additional financing would reduce the expansion of childcare and workforce in the hospital. He said that the hospital hopes to delay Congress or reflect the cuts – but he does not rely on them.

“We see this period of allowing as a deity in order to prepare to fill the financing gap,” he said.