Budget plans leaves LC clinic in jeopardy
Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, April 13, 2016
BATON ROUGE — Moss Memorial Health Clinic and three other hospitals that serve the health needs of the poor won’t be funded unless legislators raise more revenues at a second special session or find $75.3 million in additional budget cuts for the fiscal year starting July 1.
Gov. John Bel Edwards and Jay Dardenne, state commissioner of administration, unveiled their plans Tuesday to make $792 million in budget cuts to deal with that big a deficit in the budget proposed for fiscal year 2016-17. They made their presentations to members of the House Appropriations Committee.
If additional revenues aren’t found or different budget cuts made, hospital facilities serving the state’s poor would close in Lake Charles, Alexandria, Bogalusa and Houma. Keeping Moss Memorial open would require $18.8 million in state funding, which would attract $49.8 million in federal funds.
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Moss’ inpatient and emergency services were moved to Memorial’s Oak Park campus. The clinic provides asthma, gynecology, hypertension, infectious disease, chemotherapy, dermatology, ophthalmology, rheumatology and pharmacy services, along with minor procedures.
Edwards and Dardenne asked supporters of the hospitals not to push the panic button or “freak out.” They said another special session is coming up and there is the possibility of renegotiating the contracts the state made with the private-public hospitals.
Five private-public facilities would survive — in New Orleans, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Monroe. Their survival is based on the number of medical students being trained at those facilities.
Rep. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, asked why the Monroe facility would be saved when it was earlier among those scheduled for closure.
Dardenne said it was because of its geographical location and because of the number of residents from the Shreveport hospital who are trained in Monroe. He said the state Department of Health and Hospitals examined the situation so “we could do what we did.”
Abraham said after the meeting that he doesn’t fault the Edwards administration because it has to make cuts. But he said that as a legislator who represents Lake Charles the city is missing out and he has to object.
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One solution would be to distribute the cuts more evenly among all nine hospitals, Abraham said. It has been recommended, but DHH didn’t like it, he said.
“We can’t afford to have the Lake Charles services cut when we are experiencing unprecedented economic growth,” Abraham said.
Admitting he doesn’t like to budget with one-time money, Abraham said $125 million in an extra Medicaid payment owed to the federal government could be delayed again and that money used to keep the hospitals open. That would give budget planners time to come up with a more permanent solution, he said.
Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma, said surviving hospitals were being cut 3 percent and the other four 100 percent.“Do you know how unfair that sounds?” she said.
Amedee said three other hospitals in her area won’t keep their emergency rooms open because they won’t be compensated for care they are obligated to give to poor citizens. Private Lake Charles-area hospitals would face the same situation.
Abraham said recently that if Lake Charles Memorial loses out on the funding, there is a chance it would have to close its emergency room.
“I’m not going to say it is going to happen because that’s a board decision, but it’s a strong possibility when you lose funding of that magnitude,” he said. “A lot of the uninsured patients that they were getting paid for they would not be getting paid for.”
State Reps. Tony Bacala
