Children's hospitals enter the Capitol budget fray

Saint Paul, MN -- Minnesota's pediatric hospitals have entered the political fray at the Capitol in hopes of staving off huge budget cuts. The heads of Children's Hospitals and Gillette Children's held a rare news conference Monday to ask for fairness from lawmakers and Governor Tim Pawlenty.

"What is currently being debated at the Capitol is whether we should balance a major chunk of our state budget on the backs of sick children and their low income parents," Children's C.E.O. Dr. Alan Goldbloom told reporters.

Goldbloom said Children's stands to lose $36 million in Medicaid funding in the next two years, if Governor Pawlenty's cuts to subsidized health care become law.  That's on top of $58 million in Medicaid cuts the Children's system has sustained since 2003 according to Goldbloom.

He said pediatric hospitals will be hit disproportionately because they care for a higher share of Medicaid patients than the typical medical center.

"Here at Children's Medicaid comprises 40 percent of our revenue," Goldbloom said, "That is about four times greater than the average for a Minnesota hospital."

Margaret Perryman, the C.E.O. of Gillette Children's Specialty Health Care in Saint Paul, said the hospitals don't discriminate based on who pays the bills.

"We don't have a door where children on Medicaid walk through and a door children who are not on Medicaid walk through," Perryman said, "As we endure cuts through the Medicaid program what we actually have to end up doing is cut services for all."

Perryman said that losing $10 million in the next two years could threaten Gillette's outreach services, which saved children and their families 400,000 highway miles last year.  Goldbloom said the hospital's ability to deliver world class care will be compromised if the budget cutting trend continues.

Melissa Winger, who heads Children's family advisory council, also weighed in at the news conference.

"If Children's could no longer provide those treatments and services I can not tell you for sure that Devin would survive," Winger remarked.

Her 13-year-old son Devin was born with a chromosomal disorder that has required 40 surgeries and other treatments at Children's, with his most recent hospitalization in March of this year.

"There may be a day where somebody might tell me that there is nothing more that we can do for Devin," she said, "But imagine that statement if it starts with 'Because of budget cuts there is nothing more we can do for Devin'."

Governor Pawlenty recently told reporters he knows hospitals are hurting, but that the medical industry can't expect to be immune from the impact of the recession.

"Any group that comes here and says they're immune from the cuts or the pressure of the impact of that is blowing smoke," Gov. Pawlenty told reporters at an April 23rd briefing, "And they've got to be held to account and say what are you going to do? And the answer isn't give me my money and I'm going to cling to the status quo."

Goldbloom said that Children's has already cut staffing, frozen management salaries and continues to search for more efficiencies in operations.

"Medicaid is our life blood," Goldbloom said, "What we're asking for is a renewed sense of fairness and balance at the Capitol."

Pawlenty pointed out that hospitals will also take funding hits under the House and Senate versions of the health care budget bills.

Speaker of the House Margaret Kelliher, a Minneapolis Democrat, acknowledged that fact, but said the bills being crafted by lawmakers soften the blow. 

Kelliher, one of several lawmakers on hand at the Children's hospital press event, said it's the wrong time to slash jobs in the health care sector.

"The budget cuts that the governor is insisting on in the health care area would affect the 20 percent of our economy, our non-farm economy, related to health care," Kelliher said, "Over 10,000 job cuts in the health care area in the private sector and the social service sector." 

By John Croman, KARE 11 News

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