Connecticut hospital executives are asking the General Assembly to intervene and prevent $63.4 million in new cuts to state Medicaid payments to their health care facilities.
Jennifer Jackson, president and CEO of the Connecticut Hospital Association, on Tuesday said the reduction will lead to a $130 million decline in federal reimbursement. Coupled with the cuts already in the new state budget, Jackson predicted there will be employee layoffs.
The hospital executives pointed out that taken together with cuts imposed by the original budget, they’ve been asked to shoulder half a billion dollars in funding reductions, bringing their tax burden far above that of for-profit corporations in the state.
Last week, Governor Dannel Malloy's office announced it is planning more than $102 million in budget cuts to keep the new $20 billion budget in balance. Malloy's budget director said recent stock market losses are projected to cut into state revenues this fiscal year.
Senate and House Republicans joined hospital officials on Tuesday in calling for a special legislative session to address the state's budget situation.
John Murphy is CEO of the Western Connecticut Health Network. He said the burden of the Medicaid cuts will fall on poor patients who won’t now receive preventive services, and may end up needing catastrophic care.
"But you're not going to see it, you're not going to hear about it, because they carry their burdens quietly and they suffer in silence," Murphy said. "We're asking for a conversation, because I'm not sure these cuts were well thought out."
Republican legislators refused to say if they’d sanction tax hikes in place of the cuts in calling for a special session to discuss the budget rescissions, but they did say they’d like to see further concessions from state labor unions.
House minority leader Themis Klarides said she’s frustrated that Republicans’ budget proposals were never considered last spring. She called Governor Malloy’s approach "patchwork."
"I mean if we're going to continue to do this month-to-month thing," Klarides said, "we should just throw the whole budget process out the door and just let them operate by executive order, because that's kind of what happens here."
The cuts were ordered late last week, because of projections of sharply lower tax revenues this fiscal year.
This report includes information from The Associated Press.
