Protecting children's healthcare
March 31, 2011
Help us protect high-quality healthcare for children
As City, State and Federal governments grapple with budget crises and looming cuts, families that rely on government funding and organizations that serve them, such as Children's Memorial, are gravely concerned about how proposed government cuts would affect our country’s most critically ill children. These cuts would severely compromise the ability of pediatric specialists and children’s hospitals to continue providing quality healthcare.
Children’s Memorial, the largest provider of pediatric Medicaid services in Illinois, has always faced challenges when it comes to government funding and Medicaid reimbursement. However, we now find ourselves in a uniquely urgent position on the brink of devastating cuts that would impact our mission.
Below is a summary of the proposed cuts and their impact on children’s healthcare. Please take two minutes to contact your legislators as soon as possible to share your concern about these cuts.
State Medicaid cuts
Illinois’ state budget proposals are calling for a 6 percent reduction to hospital Medicaid reimbursement rates, which would amount to a $10 million cut to Children’s Memorial Hospital. In addition, pending a move to mandatory managed care, there could be an additional 15 percent reduction in Medicaid reimbursement payments to hospitals. All of this is on top of our losses last fiscal year due to the Medicaid program’s inadequate reimbursement – $39 million loss to our hospital and $32 million loss to our physicians.
Children’s Memorial provides the largest amount of pediatric Medicaid care of any single hospital in Illinois. Over half of the hospital’s beds are filled by children insured by Medicaid. Medicaid pays for about 80 percent of the cost for hospital services and about 31 percent of the cost for physician care. Despite these losses, Children’s Memorial has continually filled the void created by the unavailability or inadequacy of primary care and the lack of access to pediatric specialty care.
The proposed cuts, combined with the disruption of care that these excessive changes will cause, destroy the safety net for children that Children’s Memorial (and other hospitals) has provided for the last half century.
Children’s Hospital’s Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Cuts
For the past 11 years, children in this country have benefited tremendously from a little-known, modest federally funded pediatric training program. CHGME helps subsidize the significant yet necessary cost of training pediatric residents, including pediatric specialists, at 56 freestanding children's hospitals across the country. While other hospitals receive funding through Medicare for training residents, CHGME is the only federal program that funds graduate medical education at freestanding children’s hospitals – including Children’s Memorial Hospital.
The President’s proposed budget eliminates this program entirely. This would jeopardize children’s access to specialty care at a time when a shortage of pediatric specialists already poses problems. Sick children in Illinois and across the country already face delays in care and wait times of up to three months just to see pediatric specialists such as pulmonologists, neurologists and surgeons.
Last year, Children's Memorial received $9.1 million in CHGME funds, which helped offset the $22.4 million annual cost of the program. We embrace our mission to train the next generation of physicians who are dedicated solely to the care of children, but Children's Memorial and the other freestanding children's hospitals in the nation cannot shoulder the full cost. Without CHGME funding, resident training programs at every freestanding children's hospital in the country will suffer significantly.
Thank you for considering our urgent request to contact your legislators to ensure that children’s voices are heard as these cuts are debated. Please also contact me with your thoughts and feedback.