Lawmakers Rally to Stop $8 Billion Cut to Safety-Net Hospitals

More than 150 lawmakers are banding together to prevent billions of dollars in hospital funding for caring for the poor from expiring at the end of the year.

The lawmakers, including Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), penned a letter Monday urging House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to “take action on upcoming cuts to Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments, slated to start on January 1, 2025.”

DSH payments provide supplemental income to hospitals that serve a large proportion of low-income or uninsured patients. The payments are scheduled to be cut because the Affordable Care Act had phased in a reduction in DSH payments starting in 2014, assuming the need for the payments would shrink each year as more Americans enrolled in health-care coverage.

Since 2013, Congress has repeatedly passed legislation to delay statutory cuts from going into effect.

Lawmakers have expressed their intention to collaborate on a fiscal solution to ensure that low-income hospitals stay financially solvent.

If Congress fails to enact DSH payment extensions, according to the letter, DSH hospitals would be subject to an “$8 billion annual cut,“ or “nearly half of the federal DSH funding.” This comes as the American Hospital Association estimates that hospitals receive only 87 cents for every dollar spent caring for Medicaid patients.

“Our nation’s Medicaid DSH hospitals, many of which are the backbone of rural and urban communities alike, simply cannot absorb losses of this magnitude,” the letter said.