The FY 2020 federal budget proposed by the Trump administration this week would bring pain for private safety-net hospitals if adopted.
Highlights of the proposed spending plan include:
- More than $135 billion in cuts in Medicare uncompensated care payments (Medicare DSH) and Medicare bad debt reimbursement over the next 10 years.
- Continued extension of Medicare site-neutral payment outpatient policies.
- $48 billion in cuts in graduate medical education spending over the next 10 years.
- $26 billion in new Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) cuts.
- Repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and all funding to pay for that expansion.
- Support for legislation to introduce Medicaid block grants and limits on spending per recipient.
- New restrictions on the 340B program.
Responsibility for adopting a budget rests with Congress, not the president, and this proposed budget is considered unlikely to gain much support in Congress.
As appropriate, NASH will engage in advocacy in support of the needs of the nation’s private safety-net hospitals.
Learn more about the administration’s proposed budget from numerous media reports or by going directly to the source: fact sheets the White House has prepared offering budget highlights and the budget document itself.
