The health care industry is a multi-billion dollar industry yet somehow there are millions of patients that either have limited access or no access to basic health care coverage or services and a forever growing deficit. Medicaid is a government funded health care plan that has been put in place to help low income families, however these programs are the ones that are affected the most during any budget cuts. Medicaid is a program funded by the federal and state governments, the state government must allocate a certain amount of money for the program and then a certain percentage is reimbursed by the federal government to the state government. One of the health care options suggested to help the deficit is to limit the states taxes on health care providers which would cause a negative impact especially on government funded public hospitals.
Public hospitals in the United States are not-for-profit organizations that are funded by the government, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida is one example of a public hospital. Jackson Memorial Hospital is 1500+ bed facility that provides multi-speciality services in a busy urban city and is also a teaching hospital (Jackson Health System). The proposed health care change to limit the taxes on health care providers would cause a difference in the amount of money to be allocated to Medicaid and the state would have to decide whether they want to continue funding the same amount (which would mean to find funding elsewhere in the budget for the Medicaid) or to decrease funding (Congress of the United States, 2016). By decreasing the funding, public hospitals like Jackson Memorial Hospital would be affected and patients would not be able to afford their health care as well. Another aspect is that the health care providers being paid through Medicaid end up with lowering payments and in a result may refuse to take on such patients using this kind of coverage (Congress of the United States, 2016).
First and foremost, the public hospital, in this case Jackson Memorial Hospital, should offer their physicians a contract where they cannot refuse treatment to certain patients based on their health care coverage. The hospital should provide some sort of payment plan to their patients which helps them cover their cost based on their financial needs, for example a patient with a chronic illness may need to make monthly payments over a period of time to afford the treatment. The health care facility should provide information and financial resources to patients before the change is implemented especially since Medicaid is being affected. Also, the hospital must also find additional funding like through donations to make up for the lost revenue/lack of Medicaid funding.
During any budget reduction plans, the government always looks to target an area with a large amount of financial debt, like the health care industry. Medicaid is responsible for a fraction of that debt and thus is being targeted however it is the responsibility of the organization to ensure they make the necessary changes to still provide the best care to the patients with the financial resources available.
Are you trying to start a grass roots movement to lobby for lower state taxes?
This sounds very much like a summary for a college thesis.