N.Y. Hospitals Face $400 Million in Cuts Even as Virus Battle Rages

[Celerity]

State lawmakers said that slashing hospital budgets to rein in Medicaid costs while the coronavirus is spreading is “cruel, inhumane and unacceptable.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/nyregion/coronavirus-hospitals-medicaid-budget.html

For the last few weeks, Dr. David Perlstein has been scrambling to find more beds and ventilators, knowing that the coronavirus outbreak, which has filled his Bronx hospital with more than 100 patients, will undoubtedly get much worse. Then a week ago, Dr. Perlstein, the chief executive officer of St. Barnabas Hospital, was given some disturbing news by a state senator: His hospital could soon lose millions of dollars in government funding.

The funding cut was proposed by a panel that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo convened earlier this year, before the virus had reached the United States, to rein in the state’s growing Medicaid program by identifying $2.5 billion in savings. But the timing of the proposals, which were released in mid-March and include about $400 million in cuts to hospitals, was a blow to the morale of many hospitals and medical workers on the front lines of the fight against a ruthless virus that has infected tens of thousands in New York.

“It’s a shot in the gut,” Dr. Perlstein said. “During a time I need to commit all the energy I have to really save lives and expand access and not skimp on resources, now I have to worry about how we’re going to continue to pay our bills.” Asked about the proposed cuts, the governor said on Saturday that hospitals would receive a windfall from the $2 trillion federal stimulus package, which provides over $150 billion in grants to hospitals fighting the virus across the country.

“The places that are getting the most funding now because of what the federal government did are the hospitals,” Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said. “They are doing better than anyone else.” He then said, as he has before, “The state has no money.” Government spending cuts are inherently contentious, but the optics of reducing money to hospitals at the epicenter of the nation’s pandemic quickly sparked a backlash from elected officials across New York City.

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