The Bassett Healthcare Network is prepared for the controversial––and now in place––federal Health Care Bill, Bassett President and CEO William Streck said last week.
And as part of the Bassett network, Cobleskill Regional Hospital is ready for the challenge, too, Dr. Streck said at CRH’s annual community breakfast.
Held at SUNY Cobleskill and with an audience of 140, the breakfast gave Dr. Streck a platform to explain the new Health Care Bill, or formally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Saying “it’s a reasonable bill,” Dr. Streck said the measure was necessary to reduce costs, reform health insurance and expand insurance coverage.
Curbing costs is essential, Dr. Streck said. Total US health care costs were $2.6 trillion in 2009, and their present growth rate, would rise to $5.2 trillion in just 11 years.
“The cost is a threat to our economy,” Dr. Streck said.
Reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals would corral some of those costs.
Over 10 years, New York hospitals would lose about $12 billion; the Bassett network would lose $60 million and Cobleskill Regional, $6 million, Dr. Streck said.
“Theoretically, we’d get some of that back with expanded insurance coverage,” he said.
That part of the bill would broaden coverage to include 32 million more people, he said.
The bill also increases funding for primary care and offers a pilot program for healthcare groups that reduce costs but still maintain quality, which could be an opportunity for Bassett, Dr. Streck said.
Bassett’s combination of hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home health care and other services enable it to deal with the new bill, he added.
“We are ready for this phase of health care, and so is Cobleskill Regional Hospital,” Dr. Streck said.
“We can’t take the challenge unless we’re organized.”
In his state-of-the-hospital message earlier at the breakfast meeting, Cobleskill Regional Hospital President and CEO Eric Stein noted that the bill is yet one more test hospitals must face.
Dr. Streck agreed but added that one more challenge is just business as usual.
“Eric said that the bill could be an economic threat to hospitals, but hospitals always live under chronic economic threat,” Dr. Streck said.