General Assistance Medical Care – Minnesota

Funding cuts strain health plan for poor, By Warren Wolfe, August 6, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “In a fragile new health program that already offers limited and uneven care to 30,000 of the poorest and sickest Minnesotans, the choices for comprehensive medical care will drop today from four hospitals to three — and soon may plunge to one. North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale confirmed that it would stop taking new patients in General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) at the end of Friday after surpassing its 1,977-patient limit on enrollments. Within three weeks, University of Minnesota Medical Center/Fairview in Minneapolis is likely to hit its enrollment cap, followed shortly by Regions Hospital in St. Paul, officials said. That will leave only Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis for people who want to enroll in GAMC or for those already in the program who seek comprehensive care. If all four hospitals hit their limits, the only medical care available to GAMC patients will come from hospital emergency rooms or clinics that offer charity care…”