October 2011 mailing
Welcome to Autumn! Join us at the next CPHS membership meeting will be Monday, October 3rd at 6:30 p.m. at the Urban Justice Center, 123 William Street- 16th floor Conference Room. Agenda to include: update on Brooklyn, on MRT happenings, and on the Charity Care proposal.
The September meeting was jam-packed with important information and a catch-up of information over the summer. Mary Li updated us on the city public health budget and the work of the People's Budget Coalition on Public Health, which will start working on the next year's city budget.
We updated members on the MRT and the critical crossroads in Brooklyn healthcare -- how the Medicaid Redesign Team had set up a subcommittee that is charged with developing proposals to redesign Brooklyn's health system. This subcommittee is chaired by Steven Berger, who also chaired the Hospital Closing Commission in 2006. Three of the five members of the Brooklyn committee were involved in the Hospital Closing Commission – not a good sign. CPHS and the Save our Safety Net- Campaign (SOS-C) are concerned that instead of "restructuring" healthcare services in North and Central Brooklyn, the committee will recommend stripping away necessary services in these already medically underserved communities!
SOS-C has been informing and mobilizing in Brooklyn since this committee was created. There have also been good meetings with elected officials at the state and city levels. The goal is to make sure that their decision-making is not top-down, but rather focuses on including Brooklyn residents in this process. An excellent forum was held with Councilmember Eugene. Your help is needed! We are all Brooklyn because next they come to our communities.
Because of community pressure, the MRT set up a Committee to look at Health Care Disparities and this committee is much more representative of Medicaid consumers and their communities. The committee is looking a number of important recommendations, including: Medicaid reimbursement for language access; streamlining the process to apply for Emergency Medicaid; and charity care funding. Take a look at the MRT web site to get a sense of the work going on.
Judy reported on the CPHS Charity Care proposal, with a major report developed by a Professor at Boston University. The proposal figures out a method to target the $847 million in charity care funding for hospitals that "follows the patient." Take care of an uninsured patient and get paid for providing that care. CPHS has reached out to lots of organizations to gather support for this proposal (see enclosed flier with sign-on for endorsement). The proposal is being submitted to two of the MRT committees for their consideration. Both the Healthcare Association of New York State and the Greater New York Hospital Association have already expressed concern/opposition to this plan. This is one way to encourage hospitals to obey the state Manny's Law which requires all hospitals to develop a charity care policy with a sliding fee scale for low-income uninsured patients. If they know they will get paid for providing this care, we would hope that more of the hospitals will more willingly implement this plan. Come to CPHS meeting to learn more about this proposal and how you can help with your support.
Concern was raised about the privatization of the dialysis service at Bellevue. We learned that there may be a plan to privatize more dialysis services at other public hospitals. We just watched how patients at the public hospital in Atlanta, Grady Hospital, lost access to dialysis services when it was privatized. There is a committee with DC 37 looking at the privatization of these services and figuring out how to challenge these plans. Karen Smith of CPHS board will work on the legal issues with others. The privatization, and other plans are part of the HHC four year plan to cut the deficit. Great concerns were raised about the impact of these efforts on patient access to health care services in the public system. CPHS will be looking at these issues with the help of others. Join us in this critical effort.
