Advocates Say Medicaid cuts Would Target Children's Care
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
By: Rick Stone

February 28, 2012 | WMFE - Proposed cuts to hospital Medicaid reimbursements will hit the state's children's hospitals especially hard, advocates warned Monday. They say that's where most of the Medicaid patients are.

  

The proposed cuts are high, $146 million dollars in the Senate budget and $86 million in the House, and they follow several years of similar cuts. 
Lindy Kennedy of the Safety Net Hospitals Alliance said Florida's 14 children's hospitals would absorb the majority of the reduction.
That’s because two thirds of hospitalized children are insured through Medicaid.

“Some may mistakenly believe that cuts to hospitals do not materialize to cuts to pediatric care.” Kennedy said. “We are here to emphasize there are devastating consequences to these cuts.”

Among the worried is Tampa mother Tish West whose 15 year old daughter, Caroline, gets treated at  St. Joseph's Children's Hospital for a complicated neurological problem.

“If we didn't go there we would have to go to five or six doctors which would cost the state a lot more than what it costs to have us go to the chronic clinic.” West said.

Also concerned is Suzy Elmore of Fort Lauderdale whose daughter, Brooke, was treated for months at Broward General's Chris Evert Children's Hospital after a premature birth and a whole-body infection.

“We were in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit and because of that we were given things and opportunities for our child that she needed.”
Elmore said.

The children's hospital association says the budget reductions could close some programs, limit the scope of others and induce some doctors to leave Florida for states where Medicaid remains relatively intact.