Copyright 2000 The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus
Dispatch
December 16, 2000, Saturday
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 4A
LENGTH: 477 words
HEADLINE:
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL MIGHT GET $ 6 MILLION
BYLINE:
Jonathan Riskind, Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
DATELINE: WASHINGTON -
BODY:
Children's Hospital of Columbus will receive a big boost from the
final budget deal approved yesterday by Congress.
Tucked into an overall
spending measure for education, health and labor programs was $
235 million for graduate medical-education programs at
children's hospitals nationwide. The portion coming to the Columbus hospital is
estimated at between $ 5 million and $ 6 million -- a hefty sum considering the
overall operating budget of the hospital is about $ 225 million. That's a major
increase over the $ 1.1 million the hospital received this year. And because
medical-education money flows through the Medicare program, which serves the
elderly, children's hospitals for years didn't get any federal assistance for
their teaching programs.
Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Perry Township, was among
a number of Ohio lawmakers - - including Reps. David L. Hobson, R-Springfield,
and Sherrod Brown, D-Lorain, as well as Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio -- pushing to
increase the medical- education money for children's hospitals.
Lawmakers pushing for the funding had hoped to win $ 285 million
nationwide -- a total that would have brought as much as $ 7 million into the
Columbus hospital's coffers. But the final amount was trimmed as part of the
compromise that allowed Congress and the White House to sign off on the last of
the 13 annual spending bills for a federal fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Still, coming up with $ 235 million is a "huge accomplishment,'' Pryce
said.
Ohio has seven independent children's hospitals.
"This is
landmark legislation for not only the children's hospitals, but the whole future
of the pediatric- health infrastructure, including patient care, education and
research in this country,'' said Dr. Thomas Hansen, chief executive officer of
Children's Hospital of Columbus. "This changes the whole future of what we are
able to do for children in this community.''
Meanwhile, the final budget
deal also included $ 60 million to launch the administrative side of a federal
program compensating Cold War-era nuclear workers in southern Ohio and
nationwide. The money will help the Labor and Health and Human Services
departments get ready to put the program into effect by its expected start date
of July 31.
The compensation program will grant $ 150,000 and
health-care benefits to nuclear workers who contracted various cancers after
being exposed to radiation at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon,
Ohio, and other nuclear plants across the country.
Sen. George V.
Voinovich, R-Ohio, voted against the bill despite his support for the
compensation program and other items in the legislation, calling the measure too
costly.
"Washington has been spending money like a drunken sailor, and
it's the American people who will wake up with the hangover,'' he said.
jriskind@dispatch.com
LOAD-DATE: December 16,
2000 
