(Bloomberg) — A Baton Rouge hospital is closing the only emergency room on the city's impoverished north side, a real- world ripple effect of the ideological clash over President Barack Obama's health-care law.
The shutdown on April 1 serves as an early warning for hospitals in states like Louisiana, where Republican Governor Bobby Jindal turned down federal money to expand the Medicaid program for the poor. Charity hospitals will lose billions of federal aid beginning late next year, a cut that was supposed to be offset as more residents were covered by Medicaid.
The combination is a looming "double whammy," said Shawn Gremminger, a lobbyist for America's Essential Hospitals in Washington, which represents those that care for the poor.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
