fah hospital policy blog

Today, on behalf of the FAH and our more than 1,000 member hospitals, I sent a letter to the Budget committee leadership in both chambers asking them to reject all hospital cuts contained in the Administration’s FY2016 budget.  Since 2010, $122 billion in cumulative cuts have been imposed on hospitals.  The net effect of this budget is to add to that total.  Further cuts would threaten patient access to care, especially for America’s seniors, reduce critical service lines, and disrupt key economic engines in communities throughout the country.

While we welcome reform initiatives that strengthen hospital’s progress in transforming health care delivery, policymakers must also understand that further hospital cuts undermine our ability to innovate and invest in key structural health care changes that are driving the health care spending slowdown and historic low growth in hospital prices.  Cuts to hospital Medicare payments will destabilize this dynamic, and impede important transformations that are improving the efficiency and quality of our health care delivery system.