Here in Pennsylvania, where the health law has brightened the financial outlook of hospitals statewide, many are scrambling to assess how repeal would affect their bottom line and the patients they serve. The stakes are particularly high for safety-net hospitals like Temple, but even more prosperous hospitals face uncertainty after investing in new ways to deliver care under the law.
Temple executives estimate their system could lose as much as $45 million a year if the law were entirely repealed, which would return it to the losses it posted for years before the health law took effect.
“We are the de facto community hospital in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country,” said Robert Lux, the senior vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer of Temple University Health System, which includes two general hospitals and a cancer center. “Any kind of change like this would not only push Temple University Hospital into financial extremis, it would do the same thing for our entire system.”
Not far from Temple, Main Line Health, a nonprofit hospital system in the affluent Philadelphia suburbs, is far better positioned to weather the financial impact of repeal. While Temple has one of the poorest patient populations in the state — about half of its patients are on Medicaid — Main Line, which has an outpatient clinic in an upscale mall and another with a fitness center outfitted with filtered saltwater pools, has few Medicaid patients.
Still, even hospitals serving affluent populations have reason to be nervous about a future without the health law. Main Line has invested substantially in response to the law’s push to base hospital pay on patient outcomes instead of the amount of medical services provided. Repealing the law would create uncertainty about the future of this new paradigm, which has forced hospitals to rethink how they deliver care.
Hospitals in Safety Net Brace for Health Care Law's Repeal - The ... - New York Times
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