President Bush’s proposed 2006-07 budget includes nearly $50 billion in cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs from 2007 to 2011.  Medicare payments to hospitals in New York State would be cut by more than $700 million over those five years, and payments to nursing homes and home health providers would be cut by approximately $450 million over those same five years, bringing the total Medicare payment reductions to New York State healthcare providers to almost $1.2 billion by 2011.

"Proposed budget cuts to Medicare could put our local hospitals on life support," said Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey (D-Westchester/Rockland), a member of the House Appropriations and Homeland Security Committees.  "It makes no sense to cut much-needed funding from our health care providers at a time when we depend on them more and more to meet the public health and homeland security challenges we face.  I am fighting in Congress to stop these detrimental cuts."

These cuts would occur in a fiscal environment in which New York hospitals have suffered seven consecutive years of bottom line losses, and more than half of New York's nursing homes and certified home health agencies are losing money. If enacted, they would spell disaster for Westchester County’s financially struggling hospitals.

Among the hospitals hardest hit is St. John’s Riverside Hospital, which would lose nearly $3 million. Westchester Medical Center is projected to lose over $7.5 million and White Plains Hospital over $3.4 million.