PEP, April 2016: Public hospitals face a serious crisis

Public Employee Press

Public hospitals face a serious crisis

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

NYC Health + Hospitals is in critical condition. Without a major transfusion of funds, the largest public health system in the nation could fail to sustain operations. Several developments jeopardize the future of quality public health care in New York City:

Health + Hospitals carries a staggering $700 million in debt.
Changes in service delivery, mandates to digitize records, and shifting to preventive and managed care models are taxing NYC H+H further.
Unfair distribution formulas shortchange the system of its fair share of Medicaid and Medicare funds.
Abysmal reimbursement rates cannot cover the actual costs NYC H+H incurs as the city's only public healthcare provider.

In some good news, Albany legislators last month restored $300 million dolars in Medicaid support to the final state budget. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had cut the funds in the executive budget and wanted the city to pick up the funding responsibility.

NYC Health+Hospitals treats 1.4 million New Yorkers, regardless of their ability to pay. Yet NYC H+H is guaranteed only 3 percent of some $3.5 billion Albany allocates for these patients. That's $96 million to treat 60 percent of the state's elderly, the poor, the homeless, the uninsured - and their children.

Albany allocates the lion's share of public funds - more than $3.4 billion annualiy -to private hospitals. Crain's Health Pulse reports that in 2014, New York Presbyterian raked in more than a quarter-billion-dollar profit and collected over $39 million from the state's indigent care fund. NYU Langone Medical Center received over $8 million and Montefiore, $16 million, from the state despite record profits. NYC H+H gets whatever may be left over.

Private hospitals have huge surpluses, but are not very charitable. In fact, they routinely fail to care for the indigent and homeless, often sending them to NYC H+H for operations and treatment - instead choosing to treat those who can afford to pay.

Losing almost a half billion dollars in state aid puts Health+Hospitals in a financial chokehold and threatens 2,000 jobs. The beleaguered healthcare agency struggles to meet payroll. DC 37 has 18,000 members employed by NYC H+H. Year after year they are asked to do more with less.

You can join union members, healthcare advocates and residents in the fight for fair funding for NYC H+H. Lend your voice at the NYC Health+Hospitals annual meetings and register in advance at 212-788-3360.

For a list of meetings, check out the union's blog at www.dc37blog.wordpress.com and the DC 37 Facebook page. Hear what the future holds for NYC H+H, and how the state budget and 2020 vision plan will affect public health care in New York City.