Lawmakers must guard Medicaid, accessibility

By John Hillenmeyer and Lars Houmann | Guest columnists
Lars Houmann is president and chief executive officer of Florida Hospital. John W. Hillenmeyer is president and CEO of Orlando Health.

Florida’s Medicaid rates for hospital services are among the lowest in the country. To decrease support for the program would only enact a chain reaction that ultimately would cripple Florida’s health-care system. Slashing funds for Medicaid would not reduce health-care costs. Instead, these costs would be shifted to the private sector, resulting in increased premiums, deductibles and co-payments for patients with employer-provided health insurance.

The costs for those with employer-health insurance are high enough, considering Medicaid currently doesn’t cover the full cost of most services. To put it plainly, reducing Medicaid funding would result in a hidden tax for those fortunate enough to be able to pay for their health care.

With Medicaid paying below the cost of treatment, hospitals would be forced to limit the services they provide, decreasing accessibility to the public. That means hospitals with high numbers of patients on Medicaid, such as inner-city and children’s hospitals, would be less able to care for the patients who need it most.

Medicaid was established in 1965 to help the underprivileged and disabled get the care they need. Today, about half of all Floridians are either uninsured or covered by federally supported health-care programs like Medicaid.

To be more precise, nearly 3 million Floridians depend on Medicaid.

Those who are blind and disabled receive more than 61 percent of the services covered by Medicaid. Children below the poverty line account for almost a third of Medicaid costs. Take away Medicaid funding, and you take away an important safety net for the most vulnerable of Florida’s population.

Overall, Florida’s hospitals saw 2.3 million patients in 2008, which would be impossible to accomplish with less funding for Medicaid.

Nationwide, the health-care industry accounted for more than half of the fastest-growing occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2008, the industry provided Americans with 14.3 million jobs and is expected to add 3.2 million jobs by 2018, which is more than the projections for any other industry.

In Central Florida, 27 cents of every dollar goes to health-care services. This accounts for $7.4 billion of the economies of Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. In 2006, Florida Hospital and Orlando Health, combined, employed more than 30,000 people, placing them with Disney among the top employers in our area.

Health care is an economic driver for Florida and was a leading stable component of the state’s economy during the recession. Florida’s 280 hospitals have generated more than 400,000 jobs and more than $79 billion in sales revenue.

Legislators must remain dedicated to the preservation of health-care access by focusing on an increase in federal matching funds for Medicaid and ensuring money generated by the dollar-a-pack tax on cigarettes is channeled into health care as it was intended.

Only by doing this can our lawmakers avoid the dire consequences of losing jobs and access to health care.

Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel