Copyright 2000 Boston Herald Inc.
The Boston Herald
June 15, 2000 Thursday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 035
LENGTH: 609 words
HEADLINE:
OP-ED; Red alert at Children's Hospital
BYLINE: By Jack
Williams
BODY:
We justify giving tens of millions
of tax dollars to the New England Patriots because a pro football team helps
define a region of the country. Hundreds of millions of public dollars may end
up helping the Red Sox build a new ballpark because Major League Baseball is a
source of pride and value to a big city.
If there is any logic to that
reasoning, then why have we allowed a valuable Boston institution to teeter on
the edge of insolvency? Children's Hospital, which has saved the lives of
hundreds of thousands of seriously ill children, has been forced to go hat in
hand to Beacon Hill to try to get the state to pay its bills. Finally the
Legislature has agreed but now is debating how much to reimburse the hospital
for the care given to low-income and disabled children and families whose only
insurance is provided by Medicaid. This past year, Children's Hospital
subsidized the state by $ 16 million. That's the difference between what the
state paid and what it cost for outpatient and inpatient care for the state's
poor children.
Even if the commonwealth agrees to make up the entire
shortfall (highly unlikely), Children's still will lose tens of millions of
dollars this year. The reasons are complicated and infuriating. The simplified
explanation is Children's Hospital is penalized because it cares for children.
Senior citizens insured by federal Medicare go elsewhere and that has a profound
effect on reimbursement dollars. This takes an especially illogical twist in the
formula for the state's uncompensated care pool (a fund set up to help hospitals
that bear the brunt of caring for the poor or underinsured).
Because the
care pool is based on the amount of Medicare received, Children's doesn't get a
penny from it even though the hospital is the latest provider of pediatric
low-income care in the state. Instead it has to pay $ 9 million every year into
the care pool. This is in addition to the $ 5 million given in free care to poor
families.
And because Children's does not care for senior citizens, it
does not benefit from the country's primary source of money for graduate
medical education. Thus the hospital doesn't get paid the $ 17 million
in yearly costs for training the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric
specialists.
The bottom line is Children's Hospital is bleeding red ink
- $ 61 million lost last year. This year extensive cost-cutting has reduced the
deficit by one-third, but it still will be $ 41 million. Yearly telethons,
generous gifts from donors and fee hikes cannot make this up. Something must be
done or one of Boston's greatest treasures will be altered or lost forever.
Ironically most other states recognize the special mission of
independent pediatric hospitals and use a variety of means to support them as
safety-net providers for children from low-income families. Yet in Massachusetts
we take for granted that we have the nation's No. 1-rated pediatric hospital - a
hospital that is going broke.
Look into the eyes of anxious parents
pacing the waiting room at Children's, awaiting word on the condition of their
sick child, and you may be convinced that we have our priorities mixed up.
Bob Kraft's threats to move the Patriots out of Massachusetts forced the
state to come up with tens of millions to help with the costs of a new stadium.
The Red Sox now say they need hundreds of millions of public money for a new
Fenway Park. All of this largesse may be justified in a booming economy. But how
can we give in to the whining of wealthy sports team owners but ignore the
growing crisis at Children's Hospital?
Jack Williams is an anchorman at
WBZ-TV.
LOAD-DATE: June 15, 2000
