{"id":84537,"date":"2017-02-17T08:39:56","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=84537"},"modified":"2017-02-17T08:39:56","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:39:56","slug":"brown-supports-medicare-funding-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/02\/17\/brown-supports-medicare-funding-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown supports Medicare funding reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; This week, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) reintroduced bipartisan legislation to correct an unfair funding formula that results in lower Medicare reimbursement rates for hospitals in rural and low-wage areas. The Fair Medicare Hospital Payments Act of 2017 would create an \u201carea wage index,\u201d which accounts for the relative wages of the communities that hospitals serve when calculating Medicare reimbursement rates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOhioans who live in underserved communities should not have their access to healthcare threatened by a broken federal formula,\u201d said Brown. \u201cHospitals serving our most vulnerable areas that are economically struggling encounter enough challenges without unfair reimbursement rates further complicating their ability to care for patients. By correcting this discrepancy, we can strengthen healthcare in our rural and underserved communities and help ensure patients continue to receive medical care close to home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Under the current formula, hospitals in Ohio\u2019s underserved communities are at a disadvantage in securing Medicare reimbursements, as the area wage index disproportionately benefits hospitals in higher-wage communities. Lower reimbursement rates mean fewer resources for medical care and potentially could lead to the closures of hospitals in rural and low-wage communities.<\/p>\n<p>Brown was also an original co-sponsor of the bipartisan Fair Medicare Hospital Payments Act when it was introduced in the Senate in April 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted information WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; This week, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) reintroduced bipartisan legislation to correct an unfair funding formula that results in lower Medicare reimbursement rates for hospitals in rural and low-wage areas. The Fair Medicare Hospital Payments Act of 2017 would create an \u201carea wage index,\u201d which accounts for the relative wages [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 02:33:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}