— Photo by Jayzze
Part of the Jackson Health System, in Miami. It’s the largest provider of charity care in Florida.
A panel of South Florida hospital chief executives say that the Trump presidency and and the preservation of Republican majorities in Congress — most of whose members are longtime opponents of the Affordable Care Act — probably mean that the region’s hospitals will be forced to find ways to deliver medical care to more people with less money.
The Miami Herald reported that the CEOs, speaking at a conference entitled, The Business of Health Care Post Election, ”expect more partnerships among competing hospitals, an emphasis on technology such as doctor visits via remote video conferencing, and greater financial risks for keeping patients healthy.”
‘While Obamacare was really about expanding coverage, it looks like what’s going to be happening under the new administration is cutting costs,” said Orlando L. Alvarez Jr., chief strategy officer for Cleveland Clinic Florida.
The newspaper reported: ”He added that with 1.7 million Floridians signed up for 2017 coverage through the ACA insurance exchange at healthcare.gov, including about 635,000 people in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, ‘any changes around coverage that doesn’t cover that population will have a negative impact financially to the healthcare infrastructure.”’
But Carlos Migoya, CEO of Miami-Dade’s Jackson Health System, the largest public hospital in Florida, sounded more optimistic.
The Herald commented: “That may be because lawmakers in Congress have been receptive to Florida hospital requests for larger federal payments to hospitals to care for the uninsured. Jackson has lost about $160 million a year since 2014 because of reductions in those payments — a loss that Migoya attributed to Florida’s refusal to expand Medicaid to nearly all low-income adults as provided under the ACA.”
But Migoya, “who admitted to being ‘very concerned’ about future public funding for Jackson Health, also said he doesn’t see a replacement for the ACA coming soon: ‘We’re talking 2019 before we see anything of that magnitude.”’
