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Cook County health budget increased, but counts on federal dollarsFriday, February 27, 2009 Chi-Town Daily News by Alex Parker Though activists are criticizing county commissioners for failing to
adequately fund the Cook County Health and Hospitals System, officials
there say they can absorb a $14 million cut to their proposed budget by
reining in purchasing and extra pay for medical workers.
During
a public meeting of the system's board yesterday, the system's interim
CEO, David Small, said the leaner budget won't mean service cuts.
Late
last year, health officials requested an $866 million budget, a hike of
$46 million from 2008. But negotiations led to the county board lopping
2 percent off of that total.
Health advocates say the budget relies too much on anticipated federal funding and puts too much strain on the system.
“We’re
really behind the curve in terms of keeping up with the costs to run
the second largest health care system in the country,” says Patrick
Keenan-Devlin, spokesman for the Emergency Network to Save Cook County
Health Services.
“Our economy has completely bottomed out. The first thing to go in a family and a business is health care coverage.”
County
Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who voted against the budget, says he's
disappointed that the county board shaved off $14 million, and worries
the move could have unforeseen consequences.
The budget calls
for the health system to shed nearly 1,000 non-medical jobs, and to
hire about half that number of new medical workers.
“Our
concern is that we’re going to find that (the board is) not going to be
able to move as quickly as they thought they would to hire 500 new
medical people,” he says. “With those people, they’d be able to
generate additional revenue and services.”
The budget is getting
a boost from two federal programs, including President Obama’s stimulus
package. Suffredin says the health system is set to receive an
estimated $20 million in matching Medicaid funds from Obama’s package –
a measure known as the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage (FMAP) -
and another $27 million from a hospital assessment plan put into place
in November by former President Bush.
Frank Borgers, legislative
analyst for the National Nurses Organizing Committee, says drastic cuts
implemented in 2007 are still being felt, and the health system’s board
is not doing enough to cure the ills of the health and hospitals system.
“From
our perspective, the signals that have come out of the board ... have
not been good,” he says, citing the elimination of the county’s family
management program in July, and the decision to eliminate Oak Forest
Hospital’s inpatient surgical program last month.
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