Potential Medicaid cuts could harm health, health providers
As Congress considers cutting billions from Medicaid, experts at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say such cuts could have profound negative impacts on the health of the roughly 72 million Americans with low incomes or disabilities served by the joint federal-state health insurance program, and on the health providers who serve them.
Ben Sommers, Huntley Quelch Professor of Health Care Economics, and Adrianna McIntyre, assistant professor of health policy and politics, were quoted about the issue in an April 22 article in the Kansas Reflector. Also quoted were people who spoke at a forum in Topeka about how Medicaid had provided support for their family members with health issues such as physical or mental disabilities or dementia.
Sommers said that big reductions in Medicaid could result in funding shortfalls among hospitals and other health care providers that rely on reimbursements from the program. He said that the lawmakers’ goal of finding $880 billion in Medicaid savings over the next decade by addressing waste, fraud, and abuse [such as billing for unnecessary services or overcharging] is unrealistic. “There isn’t enough fat to cut from Medicaid to get there,” he said.
McIntyre added that governors are worried about the potential cuts. “There are definite concerns among governors about sudden changes in Medicaid funding and what it could mean to hospitals and other providers for many low-income people to suddenly find themselves uninsured,” she said. “Generally speaking, if you’re saving money, it’s coming from fewer people having benefits.”
Read the Kansas Reflector article
Kansans share personal insight into meaning of Medicaid cuts contemplated by Congress
