In a tale of two hospital associations, Tennessee's warns its members will be left reeling by planned cuts to Medicare in the Affordable Care Act, while Missouri's claims expanding Medicaid coverage will be required to make up those cuts.
According to a report by the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA), hospitals in the Volunteer State could lose as much as $5.5 billion in Medicare payments over the next decade, with $2 billion of that expected to occur over the next four years, according to the Nashville Post.
However, the report did not include participating in Medicaid expansion to offset those lost revenue sources.
By contrast, a report by the Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) concluded that the state's acute care facilities would lose $4 billion between 2013 and 2019` through planned Medicare cuts, as well as 9,000 jobs. However, it noted that expanding Medicaid under the ACA was all but an economic necessity.
"The Affordable Care Act included cuts to hospital payments but offset some of those cuts through increased coverage," MHA CEO Herb B. Kuhn said last week in a statement. "Without the new revenue from expanded coverage, the numbers don't add up. That's bad news for the currently insured and bad news for Missouri's economy."
For more:
- read the THA data (.pdf)
- read the Nashville Post article
- here's the MHA statement and report (.pdf)