NORWICH – As it stands, reports say Governor Eliot Spitzer’s executive budget would cost Chenango Memorial Hospital over $3 million during the next five years, putting the facility into a tight financial squeeze, CEO Dr. Drake Lamen said.
“This is not a good thing for us and the community,” said Lamen. “It would have a negative effect if it were to go through as it stands ... it basically wipes out our bottom line.”
According to the Healthcare Association of New York State, the governor’s plan would cost CMH $645,000 next year and just over $3 million in the next five years. In that same time, New York state hospitals would lose $2.5 billion, the HANYS report claims.
Spitzer’s goals are to streamline the Medicaid enrollment process and to expand Child Health Plus coverage to provide health insurance for the state’s uninsured residents, 400,000 of which are children. To do so, he proposes to cut-back state Medicaid reimbursements, which Lamen said cover 10 to 33 percent of a normal hospital bill.
“There’s no more money to be squeezed from hospitals,” Lamen said.
Apart from Medicaid reimbursements, the CEO explained that smaller and smaller payments from health maintenance organizations (HMO’s) have further tightened the hospital’s finances.
“Hospitals have been squeezed for the last fifteen years,” he said. “Insurance companies want deeper and deeper discounts – they keep pushing and pushing.”
According to Lamen, over the past eight years New York state hospitals have lost $2.4 billion compared to an overall profit of $4.8 billion for HMO’s. He said further cuts would result in a halt on any new hiring, and possibly lay-offs.
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