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Washington, DC -- Today, during the Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing to examine the current lack of hospital emergency surge capacity, Congressman Sarbanes questioned Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff about the Administration’s proposed Medicaid regulations and its impact on hospital emergency rooms.
During the hearing, Congressman Sarbanes asked Leavitt the following, “Many hospitals, in their core functions are understaffed and underequipped to deal with their everyday capacity and are less prepared to deal with surges in emergencies or disasters. Being that this is the case, in your opinion are hospitals, emergency rooms in particular better or less prepared for a surge or public emergency?” Secretary Leavitt replied, “Obviously, less prepared.”
“I represented hospitals for 16 years,” said Congressman Sarbanes. “Hospitals are where people go in emergencies, large or small, there is a clear need to make sure all our hospitals have what they need now. Yet, we are not listening; they are all saying the urgency is now.”
If enacted, the proposed regulations would threaten hospital trauma centers' ability to respond to a mass casualty event, such as a terrorist attack or a public health crisis. Fourteen hospitals in Maryland would feel the impact of the proposed regulations. Medicaid is the single largest expenditure in state budgets and grows by 10 percent each year. These impending cuts would force states with budgetary shortfalls to pull out of Medicaid.
The Graduate Medical Education (GME) regulation would mean the elimination of $15 million dollars of statewide funding. This would be near catastrophic for Maryland Hospitals, most use GME funding to pay residents who also work in trauma centers, the centers of first call during a major disaster or emergency.
Emergency care systems are already at the breaking point due to many people without health insurance who have to use the emergency department as a doctor’s office. On a daily basis people are brought into the ER with conditions ranging from fevers and colds to heart attacks and life threatening trauma.
If estimates are accurate, the billions of dollars nationwide that would be lost as a result of Medicaid regulations are likely to negatively impact emergency departments and trauma centers. In the event of a terrorist attack with conventional explosives a hospital’s ability to respond is critical to reducing fatalities. These cuts, if passed, will cripple trauma centers and emergency rooms nationwide.
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