Hospitals say cuts will hurt where they can least afford it

Although Illinois' 225 private hospitals will lose $100 million in state payments for treating the poor, half of what was originally proposed, the cuts will hurt where the hospitals can least afford more pain, officials said.

Loyola University Health System in Maywood, near Chicago, will likely lose more than $5 million in Medicaid payments in the 2003 fiscal year, Dr. Anthony Barbato, the company's chief executive, said Friday.

Loyola officials had expected to lose twice that much when Gov. George Ryan first proposed deep budget cuts in December, including a $200 million reduction in Medicaid, to help fill a growing budget gap.

Even after about half of that amount was restored to the state's insurance program for the poor, it wasn't enough for Loyola to avoid cutting 80 administrative and support jobs earlier this month, Barbato said. "It was a small giveback after a huge reduction," he said.

Other hospitals might have to make similar cuts, if they haven't already, said Howard Peters, senior vice president of the Illinois Hospital Association.

Carbondale losing a million

The Memorial Hospital of Carbondale will lose about $1 million, said George Maroney, the hospital's chief administrator. "That's a lot of money where I come from," he said.

The hospital, which operates the state's most sophisticated nursery south of Springfield for premature and sick newborns, cut 40 jobs earlier this year and likely won't have to cut more, he said.

The state's handful of large, publicly funded hospitals receive Medicaid funding separately from private hospitals, said Ellen Feldhausen, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Aid. As such, public hospitals and federally funded veterans hospitals are not affected by the Medicaid cuts.