Statement by Rick Pollack, AHA Executive Vice President:

Before 2007 was even 12 days old, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a rule that would reduce Medicaid funding by $3.8 billion over five years and significantly disrupt care delivered through Medicaid programs around the nation.

We strongly urge Congress to stop this rule and protect the more than 57 million children, poor, disabled and elderly individuals who depend on Medicaid as their health care safety net. We continue to call on the Administration to work with Congress and hospitals to properly protect and improve Medicaid rather than bypass needed input and propose drastic changes through a regulatory process. A majority of the House and Senate has asked CMS to hold off on this rule and that direction has been ignored. The AHA will pursue every avenue available to ensure that this rule does not prevent hospitals from providing for their community health needs.

Today, hospitals receive less than the cost of caring for Medicaid patients. This makes it difficult to ensure the services Medicaid patients need remain in their communities.

Harsh spending cuts are not the solution to Medicaid's woes. What's needed is a careful and thoughtful approach with input from Congress and the women and men on the front lines of patient care. Rather than such a deliberate process, which would consider recent recommendations from the Administration's own Medicaid Commission, CMS has chosen to ignore both Congress and the Medicaid beneficiaries we serve.