Daniel Sisto, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State, remembers when the state would have some kind of financial crisis every year.
“Now, we are down to a financial crisis every week,” said Sisto, who added that the Legislature”™s inability to put a budget together and to hold off on adding fees and taxes have left the state”™s health care providers in critical condition.
The state”™s proposed budget extender translates into health care cuts totaling more than $750 million and negatively impacts hospitals $300 million in the current fiscal year alone, according to HANYS, which predicts those cuts will be deeper by 2011.
“It has become impossible to plan and operate a hospital or any other business in New York, given the instability and unpredictability of the political process and the magnitude of the deficits. On top of that,” said Sisto, “all of this is coming in an election year, only adding to the complexity.”
For hospitals and health care providers, it is more than “an extremely anxious time,” Sisto said. “The longer this goes on, the greater the hazard.” In fact, so piecemeal is the state”™s approach and decision-making processes, he said, “it is hazardous to the health and welfare of every resident at every level of service.
“We have had seven budget cuts in the last two years. With no state budget in place, a new federal health care package coming to us and the state”™s continued cuts and charges, it is making it a challenge for every health care provider in this state to keep their doors open. I never thought I would see the day when St. Vincent”™s Hospital in Manhattan ”“ the symbol of America during the September 11 attacks ”“ would be forced to shut down.”
The MTA tax has hit hospitals, often the largest (and higher-paying) employers in the region, particularly hard, Sisto said. “Hospitals have large staffs and the MTA tax is a crushing burden. On top of not knowing when and if they will see a state budget and trying to pay all the extra fees, taxes and surcharges, it is impossible for them to plan on hiring new physicians, buy needed equipment or make needed improvements.”
Recommendations by the Berger Commission, formally known as the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, have resulted in closings and consolidations of hospitals and nursing homes, but for Albany and its spending practices “no hospital or health care institution can guarantee it will not become another St. Vincent”™s,” he said. “In this climate, it can happen.”
Sisto said the repetition of cut after cut, tax after tax and “Albany”™s pretense that cutting Medicaid, while allowing the program to expand, is helping health care reform is a ridiculous notion.”
According to the HANYS website, the fiscal impact 2010-11 is more than $256 million, with another $34 million in cuts to graduate medical education. Area hospitals being impacted the most are Westchester Medical Center and Blythedale Children”™s Hospital in Westchester County and St. Francis Hospital and Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Dutchess County.
No hospital in the entire state has been spared. “Where will it end?” Sisto asked.
