Inauguration Day is inching closer and closer, and so are the policies that President-Elect Trump has planned once he assumes the seat of President this year. A repeal of the Affordable Care Act has been lingering on his agenda since his campaign, and while a repeal is estimated to cause 28 million Americans who would then be without healthcare, another industry would also be hurt. Hospitals.
In a study conducted by the Federation of American Hospitals and the American Hospital Association, close to $168.5 billion in net income would be lost by 2026 should Trump repeal the Affordable Care Act with no structured replacement plan. This would include the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments, which were reduced after the ACA came into effect. These DSH payments were made to hospitals to provide some partial compensation for treatment of indigent patients.
Healthcare economics firm Dobson DaVanzo curated the report, and also found that without the DSH payments, the loss to hospitals would be $399.8 billion—which includes about two million additional people who enrolled onto Medicaid platform since the ACA came into effect. This figure, however, could be lower because the firm used the Obama-vetoed H.R. 3762 Bill as the replacement model but without considering the higher DSH payments at pre-ACA levels.
In other words, while the report did not explicitly state, if a H.R. 3762 Bill model is used, and thereby no ACA reduction of DSH payments, the DSH payments should be higher, and thus, the loss to the hospitals should be lower than the $399.8 billion.
It’s a situation that seemingly requires immediate attention, and the resulting significant losses would stand even long after Trump’s first term, and any second term.