Blog by W. Stephen Love, President/CEO, Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council
The healthcare landscape is changing as we move towards coordinated patient care with a “triple aim” of better health, better care and better value. To encourage transformation, it is important for laws and regulations to keep pace. All governmental agencies need to work collectively to support this healthcare transformation.

The U.S. House and Senate are considering extending the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, an important issue. They need to remove a proposal to fund the program by extending sequestration cuts which reduce Medicare payments to providers. Why would we consider reducing payments to fund a non-Medicare program? Hospitals, physicians and other Medicare providers have been subjected to tremendous cuts over the recent years. Many times, payment reductions were shifted from one provider to another creating precarious delivery issues.

The proposal to take Medicare funding and support trade programs is ill-advised and unfair to the medical providers treating the elderly and disabled. This proposed sequestration proposal is counterproductive and should be dropped immediately from the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program.

Hospitals have already absorbed over $121 billion in Medicare and Medicaid reductions since 2010. Additional cuts and use of Medicare reductions to fund non-Medicare legislation is a dangerous and troubling precedent. Hospitals need stable reimbursement as they continue to transform and improve care for patients.