Medicare and Medicaid cuts detailed in the administration’s proposed FY 2021 budget could be harmful to private safety-net hospitals, the National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals declared in a news release issued in response to that proposed budget.

Among those cuts:  $465 billion in Medicare payments and $920 billion in Medicaid reductions over the next ten years.

“The extent of the proposed spending cuts is daunting,” said Ellen Kugler, NASH’s executive director.  “The payments that have been targeted for the biggest cuts are the very payments that enable safety-net hospitals to provide vital services to their communities.  Without them, the capacity of private safety-net hospitals across the country to continue serving the low-income, low-income elderly, uninsured, and medically vulnerable residents of their communities could be in serious jeopardy.”

Among the payments targeted for major cuts are Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH), Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH), Medicare graduate medical education payments, Medicare bad debt reimbursement, and payments for some Medicare-covered outpatient services.

Learn more about NASH’s objections to the proposed cuts in this NASH news release.