- Fewer doctors, longer ER waits are expected, By Ken Alltucker, March 24, 2010, Arizona Republic: “Arizona hospitals say the Legislature’s steep cuts to health-care programs may trigger more hospital cuts and layoffs, longer emergency-room waits and a deepening doctor shortage. The budget cuts will eliminate health insurance for nearly 350,000 low-income adults and children enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, leaving them few options for care. Hospital executives worry that they will have to absorb the cost and burden of providing treatment for the low-income residents and children until the more generous federal subsidies arrive in 2014 as part of the federal health-reform bill. Hospitals are required to provide care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay…”
- Arizona non-profit clinics fear lost funds, flood of uninsured patients, By Ginger Rough, March 24, 2010, Arizona Republic: “Arizona’s community health centers, a vital safety net for the uninsured and the working poor, are bracing for an onslaught of new patients and preparing to roll back their services after two state health-care programs were killed and the state’s Medicaid spending was slashed. New patients cut off from government insurance programs could flood the centers, and the centers would not have reimbursements from those programs to cover the full cost of providing care. The 16 federally qualified centers, which are non-profits and operate more than 130 clinics in mostly rural and underserved areas, rely mainly on state and federal insurance and federal grants to operate…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty