Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) led a New York delegation letter to President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in strong opposition to proposed drastic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.  Rep. Engel’s letter stated that the Members would “find it next to impossible” to support a debt ceiling package which included cuts to Graduate Medical Education (GME) funding for teaching hospitals and essential Medicaid services. 

“These deep cuts would be devastating to New York’s economy, as hospitals are the largest employers in many communities statewide.  In addition, these reductions in funding would cripple our providers’ ability to maintain the exceptional quality of care enjoyed by our citizens.  Cuts to Medicare supported GME for our teaching hospitals are especially worrisome, as these hospitals not only train our next generation of physicians, but also provide highly specialized care not found in community hospitals.  Teaching hospitals also provide the vast majority of uncompensated care to New Yorkers in need.  Deep cuts to GME would result in consequences for doctors, patients and administrators too terrible to fathom,” said Rep. Engel, a senior member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health.

With a nationwide physician shortage, expected to reach 130,000 physicians by 2025, hindering teaching hospitals’ ability to train new doctors is counterproductive.  An aging population and diminishing physician population demands young doctors more now than ever before.  Cuts to GME would not only force New York’s teaching hospitals to cut back on training doctors, but also reduce services to patients.  The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) expects the cuts would result in nearly 18,000 jobs lost in New York, and 73,000 lost nationwide.

“These job losses are bad enough, but they would also bring thousands of more jobs lost indirectly due to the many services and industries reliant upon hospitals.  Jobs were supposed to be the top priority of the new House majority, but with more than half of 2011 over, we have yet to pass a single jobs bill.  Instead, we are repeatedly debating bills which cut jobs rather than create them.  It is unfathomable to me that we are talking about cutting Medicare and Medicaid rather than putting our citizens back to work,” added Rep. Engel.

New York hospitals generate nearly $108 billion for state and local economies annually, and support more than 686,000 jobs through direct and indirect employment.  Combined, hospitals pay more than $4.7 billion in state and local personal income and sales taxes.  “Placing the burden of our federal debt on one of the main revenue generators and job creators of the state, makes no sense.  It is also shameful to have the health of the people of New York tossed aside while the richest individuals and oil companies continue to enjoy tax breaks,” added Rep. Engel.

The 12-term Congressman also said that other aspects to the cuts are just as unacceptable as the GME reductions.  Proposals to cut matching funds and to eliminate states’ ability to use provider taxes as a source of federal financial support for Medicaid would result in an unfair burden for states to shoulder. 

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