美国国家公共电台 NPR Hospitals Worry Repeal Of Obamacare Would Jeopardize Innovations In Care

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

Now we report on the big effect that the repeal 1 of the Affordable 2 Care Act would have on hospitals. Exactly what effect depends on whether and how Congress makes good on a promise to replace the law. Here's what is known - the current law helps people pay hospital bills, since many more have insurance, and the law also gives hospitals incentives 3 to give better care to patients. Here's Kristin Gourlay from Rhode Island Public Radio.

KRISTIN GOURLAY, BYLINE 4: Here's one thing hospitals could lose - patients who can pay. Hospitals like this one take care of anyone who walks or rolls through the emergency room doors. This is the busy ER at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence 5 on a Friday night. Whether you have insurance or not, the ER will take care of you. If the Affordable Care Act is repealed 6, more people could come through those doors without insurance, people got covered, for example, in states that expanded Medicaid. And those Medicaid funds were a big deal, says Rachel Garfield with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

RACHEL GARFIELD: It is fair to say that if the Medicaid expansion goes away wholesale 7 and things go back to the way they were before this expansion was in place that a lot of those hospitals would see an increase in their uncompensated care costs.

GOURLAY: Or unpaid 8 medical bills. There's still a gap, says Garfield, because Medicaid doesn't always cover the complete cost of care, but it's been better than nothing. Now, if that Medicaid coverage 9 goes away, hospitals could lose more than $160 billion nationwide according to an American Hospital Association estimate. And there's another concern.

TIMOTHY FERRIS: Well, personally I'm worried that the progress we've made over the past five years would be threatened.

GOURLAY: Dr. Timothy Ferris with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston says the ACA encouraged hospitals with financial incentives to experiment with how to take care of patients and save money.

FERRIS: We have now more than 20 different programs - video visits, electronic consultation 10 with specialists, programs for patients with diabetes 11 and heart disease - and I would be worried that a repeal of the ACA would undermine our ability to invest in services for our patients that we are now investing in.

GOURLAY: Ferris' hospital has signed agreements to create accountable care organizations, or ACOs, with physicians and insurers in hopes of saving money. This is how they work - insurers pay doctors for making sure the patient is getting the best and most appropriate care, not for every test and procedure a doctor does like the typical system. Ferris knows most of those experiments haven't paid off yet, but he says they need time to work out the kinks.

FERRIS: One of the things that is difficult for people outside of health care to appreciate, particularly politicians, is how long it takes to make significant improvements in the delivery of care. Because, you know, delivering care to patients, you have to be very careful when you make changes.

GOURLAY: Or risk harming patients. Many other hospitals across the country have invested in these new networks, often overhauling 12 medical records systems, hiring staff, creating new services. Dennis Keefe, head of a large hospital chain called Care New England in Rhode Island, says he worries about the future of his ACO - Integra.

DENNIS KEEFE: I think if there is a real change in direction away from these alternative payment models, we will be assuming risk to care for a population. We have invested enormously to really be successful in this area. We have gone from zero premium 13 dollars flowing through Integra to a billion dollars.

GOURLAY: These are seismic 14 changes in the way hospitals do business, and most want the government to keep supporting these innovations.

For NPR News, I'm Kristin Gourlay in Providence.

(SOUNDBITE OF KONTAKTE SONG, "MOTORIK")

INSKEEP: That story's part of a reporting partnership with NPR News, Rhode Island Public Radio and Kaiser Health News