Ga. Officials Say Rural Health Network Faces ‘Bleak’ Future

Testifying in front of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, the association’s Ethan James was asked if that number might now be closer to half of hospitals operating in the red.

James said it’s possible, given the “increasingly difficult financial environment” hospitals face.

“I will know shortly as the new data comes out which direction we’re heading,” James said, “but I feel pretty confident that it’s heading in the wrong direction. More hospitals are certainly in worse shape.”

James told lawmakers that a host of coming cuts at the federal level could reduce payments to Georgia’s hospitals by $1.5 billion annually by 2025. 

“This is not a status quo environment. It is bleak and about to get a lot worse,” James said.  

What wasn’t discussed much at the hearing, though, was whether expanding Medicaid would help the state’s struggling system.

Georgia is one of 19 states that hasn’t expanded the federal health care program for the poor as called for under the ACA. The idea, as proposed by the Obama Administration, was that the federal cuts built into the law would be offset because more people would have insurance, thus reducing the amount of uncompensated care hospitals provide.

Georgia has the fourth-highest uninsured rate, according to the Kasier Family Foundation, at around 1.5 million people.

The head of the Senate committee, Republican state Sen. Renee Unterman, reiterated her stance that expanding Medicaid coverage is something lawmakers should consider next session.

“I believe it is a tool in the tool box, and we are facing the perfect tsunami, just like every other state in the nation, with a crisis in health care. And I think it’s our fiduciary responsibility to leave that tool box open,” Unterman said. “When you’re in a tsunami, when you’re in a crisis … you don’t say no to anything.”

Unterman said she didn’t call the meeting to talk specifically about that issue of Medicaid expansion, deferring instead to a pending report from the Chamber of Commerce about expanding access to medical services for the uninsured. The report is expected any day now.

Rural Hospital Tax Credit

Lawmakers also got an update on a tax plan that could pump millions into some of the state’s struggling rural hospitals.

The Georgia Department of Community Health released a list today of 47 rural hospitals that could qualify for donations under a new tax credit program approved by the legislature this past session.

Jimmy Lewis, CEO of Hometown Health, a network of rural hospitals, says he expects big corporate donors in metro Atlanta to line up to give.

“If it’s financially attractive to their bottom line, corporations and such should certainly be interested in helping rural hospitals,” Lewis said. “They get two things out of it, they get an improvement to their bottom line, and they get the philanthropic help for helping their communities in which their businesses survive.”

Through 2019, people and companies who make contributions to qualifying hospitals would get a state tax credit. Total contributions are capped at $50 million in 2017, $60 million in 2018 and $70 million in 2019.

Each eligible hospital is required to submit a five-year sustainability plan and tax information to get donations, which means the number of qualifying hospitals could shrink.

A final list is expected by November.