The head of a group representing Tennessee hospitals says he’s happy with today’s Supreme Court ruling on the federal healthcare law. He says if more people have insurance, it could mean more revenue. At the same time, medical centers will be dealing with a big cut in federal money.
Hospitals in Tennessee get about 40 million dollars a year from the federal government, to help make up for the amount they have to write off for treating the uninsured.
That money starts to gradually go away in 2014, as the requirement for everyone to have health insurance kicks in. Craig Becker heads the Tennessee Hospital Association.
“The dilemma that we have is we don’t know how much coverage we’ll have in the state by that time, but certainly it’s going to help us deal with some of these cuts.”
Becker say–theoretically-hospitals could make up the cuts if all Tennesseans get health insurance.
Just because more people are insured doesn’t mean hospitals stop writing off care. Different insurance plans reimburse doctors at different rates, and patients can still skip on paying their hospital bills.
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