More federal funding is needed for hospitals that serve especially high proportions of Medicaid patients and patients insured by government programs, the National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has written to congressional leaders.

This is especially important now, NASH emphasized in its letter, because of new plans to use some of the $100 billion designated for hospitals and health care providers in the federal CARES Act to pay instead for care for uninsured patients who contract COVID-19.  Those payments, which NASH supports, do not address the needs for which the original $100 billion was designated:  to help hospitals – including private safety-net hospitals – with the cost of the investments they made to prepare for the expected influx of COVID-19 patients and to help them with cash flow problems arising from the loss of revenue associated with suspending elective procedures.

See NASH’s letter to congressional leaders here.