Valley View vs. Greenville
Cars and Parts Springfield Swap Meet
Carroll Commencement
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > May > 16 > Entry
Guest column: Budget puts health care safety net for kids at risk
This commentary was written by David Kinsaul, president and CEO of Children’s Medical Center of Dayton.
Ohio’s children’s hospitals are facing Medicaid changes that could be devastating to our ability to provide the highest quality of care, regardless of a family’s ability to pay.
While Dayton Children’s Medical Center and the other children’s hospitals across the state focus on ensuring that children receive the best care for the best value, we also collectively provide more than 28,000 Ohioans with jobs — good-paying jobs that serve as economic engines.
Our researchers and medical professionals are leading the nation in innovation, product commercialization and technology development — all of which lead to more jobs and top-notch, groundbreaking health care for children.
Here in Dayton, our hospital has delivered $340 million in economic impact to the region.
As the economy has suffered, however, our Medicaid rolls continue to increase, placing more pressure on an already burdened system.
We are the health care safety net for Ohio children, and, in fact, more than 50 percent of the patients in our hospital rely on Medicaid, up 8 percent in the past three years.
This is staggering, given the fact that for each 1-percent patient shift from commercial insurance to Medicaid, our institution loses more than $1.6 million a year. Medicaid reimbursement does not cover the real cost of care.
We’re not alone in these losses. Statewide, Medicaid losses for children’s hospitals continue to grow — from $202 million in 2008 to $225 million in 2009.
Even when you consider Medicaid reimbursements and other programs for high-Medicaid hospitals (like the children’s hospital line item that is in jeopardy under the proposed budget, and the Hospital Care Assurance Program), we are still faced with a more than 20-percent gap between our Medicaid costs and state funding to provide for that care.
More than 1.2 million Ohio children — one in three Ohio children — rely on Medicaid for health care coverage, and yet Ohio’s current Medicaid spending for children is 22 percent below the national average, according to the administration’s reporting.
Without changes to the proposed budget, our Medicaid losses will increase, the gap will widen, and, I fear, Ohio’s most medically fragile children will be left without the high-quality safety net that they need in Ohio’s children’s hospitals.
Specifically, there are two key changes that need to be made to the budget. We hope that the Ohio Senate will make these changes.
• While we appreciate the amendment in the Ohio House appropriating $2 million each year to the children’s hospital line-item, it is important to remember that we are losing more than 100 times this amount annually. Fully funding this important program at $6 million in general revenue funds in each fiscal year will allow us to draw in approximately $9 million in federal matching funds.
• Medicaid managed-care plans — corporations that make money providing administrative oversight for most of Ohio’s Medicaid recipients — are attempting to gain an advantage through language that forces Ohio’s hospitals into non-negotiable relationships with these plans.
This language is not only unnecessary, but it will compound our Medicaid losses and stifle the innovation that the governor and Office of Health Transformation are envisioning to reform Ohio’s Medicaid program. This language needs to be removed to maintain a level playing field.
With the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual Medicaid losses we collectively incur, we can’t expect that Ohio will make us whole. However, we are hopeful that the losses we already shoulder will be considered as the Senate debates the most challenging state budget we have seen in our lifetime.
It is important for all of us to make sure our state senators know how important it is to invest in the health care of children and to protect the safety-net providers who care for them.
Children don’t vote, so we have to speak for them.
TweetGo to our facebook page and Like us to comment.
