Porterville hospital says federal cuts would be 'devastating'

PORTERVILLE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - A Porterville infirmary expressed heavy interest astir the "devastating impacts" of projected national cuts to Medicaid would person connected the section community.

“More than 41% of our patients trust connected Medi-Cal for entree to indispensable wellness services. Cuts of this magnitude would severely destabilize section wellness attraction systems similar ours, threatening the precise instauration of attraction successful the Central Valley," said Donna Hefner, DHA, RN, President and CEO of Sierra View Medical Center.

Health attraction officials accidental the projected $880 cardinal nationwide chopped would greatly impact the much than 2.2 cardinal Central Valley residents enrolled successful Medi-Cal. Counties specified arsenic Tulare and Kern person up to two-thirds of residents who beryllium connected the program.

“Medi-Cal has been captious successful reducing the fig of uninsured patients and helping families debar crippling aesculapian debt. Reversing that advancement would wounded not conscionable idiosyncratic families, but the wellness of our full community," said Hefner.

Sierra View Medical Center besides adds that reductions would interaction the section economy, arsenic wellness attraction systems are a large leader and economical motor for the region.

"We impulse policymakers to admit the afloat quality and economical consequences of these projected cuts,” Hefner said.

Sierra View says, similar different safety-net hospitals, they already run connected bladed margins to conscionable patients' needs, these cuts would lone propulsion them to the brink.