November 20, 2014—A bipartisan group of 27 U.S. Senators has asked President Obama not to weaken critical access hospitals in his forthcoming fiscal year 2016 budget request to Congress. [ms-protect-content id=”2799″]
The President’s last three budget proposals called for reducing CAHs’ enhanced cost-based Medicare payments from 101 percent of reasonable costs to 100 percent, and for taking away hospitals’ CAH status if they are within 10 miles of another hospital. About 70 hospitals would lose their critical access designations under this plan. CAHs have been eligible for 340B drug discounts since 2010 and there are now around 940 in the program.
Reducing Medicare reimbursement for CAHs and rescinding the CAH designation for some would be “detrimental to the access and delivery of high quality care in rural America,” the lawmakers said in a Nov. 18 letter to the President.
“As you consider the FY 2016 budget, we believe that indiscriminate cuts to CAHs are not the answer,” they added. “We ask that you carefully evaluate any potential policy changes to ensure rural communities are not adversely affected with little budgetary reward.”
Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) were the lead lawmakers on the letter. Both serve on the Budget Committee. Senator Baldwin also sits on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and Crapo on the Finance Committee. [/ms-protect-content]