What's New At Eden
California's Fiscal Emergency Puts Hospitals and Patients in Jeopardy
May 22, 2008
Eden Medical Center, and many other hospitals throughout California, are on the front lines of our health care system – operating around-the-clock emergency rooms and providing life-saving trauma or emergency care to anyone who needs treatment. All patients depend on their local community hospitals for critical health care services, regardless of their ability to pay. But many hospitals are facing multi-billion dollar budget cuts and are dangerously close to shutting their doors.
California is facing a severe budget shortfall – now estimated at $16 billion. To address this massive budget deficit, the Governor declared a “fiscal emergency,” and signed a measure that delays and reduces Medi-Cal payments to hospitals by 10 percent. This represents a total cut of $500 million to hospitals throughout the state, and a potential cut of $1.3 million to Eden Medical Center. The payment deferrals and cuts will take effect on July 1 and will impact the 2,500 Medi-Cal patients that Eden serves.
To make matters worse, President Bush has proposed a $94.4 billion cut from Medicare and another $18 billion cut from the Medicaid program over the next five years. This could result in $11 billion in losses for California’s hospitals and health systems. California’s 6.7 million Medi-Cal patients will suffer most from these severe budget cuts.
This reduction in funding will seriously jeopardize access to hospital care for California’s working poor and uninsured as well as specialized services such as emergency and trauma care that we all depend on regardless of our insurance status.
The proposed Medi-Cal cuts affect all hospitals and will even more severely impact “safety net” hospitals. The severity of the cuts could force some hospitals to close or reduce access to essential health care services. As a result, hospitals with already overcrowded emergency rooms will be further inundated with more patients, longer wait times, and financial stresses. The loss of critical hospital services will not only be devastating for low income Californians but will also present an increasingly harmful public health scenario for all Californians.
Exacerbating the problem is a growing trend of doctors who no longer treat Medi-Cal patients because of the program’s woefully low payment rates. When patients are unable to receive care from their doctors, they often turn to already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms – the most expensive setting in which patients receive care. Cutting Medi-Cal payments only worsens this dilemma.
Most important, where will patients go when hospitals are forced to close their doors? More than 70 California hospitals have closed in the past 10 years. Statewide, nearly half of California’s hospitals operate in the red and many are either near or already in bankruptcy proceedings. When hospital ERs are backlogged with Medi-Cal and other patients who can’t find doctors to care for them, it doesn’t matter how good the insurance coverage is when patients have to drive several hours to receive emergency care. When a hospital is forced to close its doors because it cannot sustain the financial losses resulting from the uninsured and Medi-Cal shortfalls, hospital services are lost to the entire community.
Given the enormity of the state’s fiscal problems, it is clear that all state programs – including those affecting California’s hospitals – are going to face budget cuts. But we all must do everything we can to minimize the impacts of those budget cuts on our patients. It is not feasible to simply cut our way out of a $16 billion deficit. A balanced approach on new revenues and budget cuts is needed to address the state’s budget problems. If you would like to help Eden Medical Center let our legislators know that these severe cuts will jeopardize patient care in Southern Alameda County, please call or write your legislator.