Sunday, February 3, 2013

FHA: Medicaid cuts will cost hospital jobs - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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In a conference call on Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the , called for the statre Legislature to maintainthe funding. There are 659,240 jobs at hospitals and related employersin Florida, including 210,204 in Southy Florida, according to the study by the . A hypothetical $100 millionm reduction to Medicaid funding for Floridw hospitals would cause the lossof 2,18u jobs statewide and $415 million in economic lossez from reduced employment, spending and taxes, according to the Hospitals have been one of the few sectors addinfg workers in the past year. “Cuts at Floridaa hospitals would have a ripple effect across our stat and cause impactswe can’t afford Wilson said.
“As we have seen in construction, jobs losses in one sector quickly spread throughout the whole economy and affect ourstatew government.” Wilson noted that Florida hospital jobs pay an averagre salary of about $53,000. The proposerd cuts to the coming budget year would come on topof $251 millio n in cuts to hospital Medicaid fundinv the state Legislature imposed for the curren t budget year. Since then, the federaol government pledged $817 million in its stimuluds bill towardFlorida Medicaid. However, FHA Presidenrt and CEO Bruce Rueben said the Florida Legislature plansz to take the stimulus money and still cut Medicaid by shiftingh the existing funding elsewhere inthe budget.
“If the statse Legislature uses the stimulus monety forother purposes, then we would be disappointee because they would be using that money for purposes it was not intended Rueben said. The FHA is supportingt a $1-a-pack increase on tobaccop products to raise nearly $1 billion to fund health care in Florida. That bill also is pendingg in the Senate. Florida Medicaid payments usually don’t cove the entire cost of providingt care, and hospitals often make up the differencew by raising prices on paying customers andhealth plans, Reubenn said.

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