Lawton hospitals share their support for Medicaid expansion
LAWTON, OK (TNN) - People gathered at the Oklahoma Capitol today to rally in hopes of Medicaid Expansion.
Just yesterday, Governor Kevin Stitt said he is not in favor of expanding Medicaid, and not in favor of accepting the federal dollars.
Both CCMH and Southwestern Medical Center said the struggles they and many other hospitals face would be fixed if they had federal dollars helping them.
Over the last five years, The Oklahoma Hospital Association says Oklahoma has turned down 14.5 billion dollars in federal funding, and Dr. Scott Michener from CCMH says that it’s now up the people to make the change happen.
“The people of Oklahoma have to know that if they want their hospital to be quality, and to stay open they have to support Medicaid expansion,” said Dr. Scott Michener, CCMH Chief Medical Officer.
Butch Hooper from Southwestern Medical Center said that its surprising the state is choosing to ignore the deal they get with the Medicaid federal funding.
“If any place can put up one dollar and get nine in return, it’s a great economic development investment, and we should’ve been doing it for the last five years,” said Butch Hooper with Southwest Medical Center.
At CCMH, Dr. Michener said that every month they deal with close to 70 patients who arrive at the hospital without insurance.
“Comanche Memorial hospital does provide the care, we never refuse care. We just don’t get reimbursed for the care. If we did get reimbursed for helping everyone, the hospital could do more, the services could be multiplied,” said Dr. Michener.
Dr. Michener said that the CCMH’s cost of care for just uninsured patients is close to 10 million dollars.
“It’s terrible as a physician to see someone and diagnose them with a bad problem or cancer, and their first thought is how am I going to pay for it, and not how am I going to get my care,” said Dr. Michener.
Hooper said he thinks one reason the state has been so against this expansion is the possibility of the the Medicaid program pulling its funding.
He said he doesn’t care if it’s Medicaid or not, he just wants to help hospitals across the state help every patient possible.
“We are pro any type of expansion that we can have to gain more federal dollars to assist insuring are 100,000 people who would be eligible that would be available for better health care," said Hooper.
At the rally today in Oklahoma City, expansion supporters filed to start an initiative petition that would put this topic on the ballot in 2020. It would need more than 175,000 signatures.
Copyright 2019 Texoma News Network. All rights reserved.
