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By Kevin Diaz and Jim Spencer
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
Feb. 14--WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama’s 2013 budget aims to shrink the deficit by $4 trillion during the next 10 years in ways that will be felt by Minnesotans in all walks of life, from farmers and doctors to low-income residents who get help with heating bills.
Even as Republicans criticized Monday’s budget for raising taxes and spending, the new White House blueprint would cut farm payments by more than $30 billion in the next decade, shrinking the federal largesse that supports one-fifth of Minnesota’s economy.
Drug companies and hospitals that treat Medicare patients also are looking at some $267 billion in total cuts during the next decade, part of a broader initiative to squeeze efficiencies out of the national health care system for seniors that was pioneered in Minnesota.
Amid other domestic initiatives, the government’s low-income energy assistance program is slated for $452 million in cuts in the next year alone, a hit that is expected to further reduce grants that were reduced last year in Minnesota by an average of $100 per family.
"They’re easy targets because they the poor have no influence," said Catherine Fair, director of the energy assistance program at the Community Action Partnership of Ramsey and Washington Counties.
But even the well-heeled and influential farm lobby is expected to share in the belt-tightening -- a partial recognition of strong commodity prices and a relatively healthy farm economy in recent years.
"Farm payments made to people getting good prices for crops is a hard sell," said Doug Peterson, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union. "We want support and a safety net for bad times."
The president’s proposed savings in health care raised a chorus of concerns from hospitals that treat the elderly and those that train children’s doctors.
Roughly $155 billion comes from making pharmaceutical companies give prescription discounts to Medicare recipients the way they now give discounts to people on Medicaid, the government’s health insurance for the poor.
The other $112 billion primarily targets hospitals, not doctors. The savings aim to promote efficiency and to get rid of payments that the government says exceed the actual cost of patient care.
Hospitals may suffer
Hospitals in Minnesota stand to take a big hit if Congress agrees to the budget proposal.
"In Minnesota, we’re already paid below our costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients," said Lawrence Massa, president and CEO of the Minnesota Hospital Association. "These across-the-board cuts could be devastating."
At Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, the mood was equally sour because of a proposal to cut two-thirds of a program used to train pediatricians and pediatric specialists, such as heart doctors and surgeons. Obama proposes to trim annual funding from $265 million to $88 million nationally.
"We currently get $2.9 million a year," said Children’s President and CEO Dr. Alan Goldbloom. "It looks like we’ll be down to $800,000. We will have to cut the number of pediatricians we train.
"The long-term issue here is for the nation’s children and who is going to treat them."
But as with any presidential budget, the document Obama released Monday is widely viewed as a negotiating position in an election-year battle over taxes, spending and the national debt.
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
Feb. 14--WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama’s 2013 budget aims to shrink the deficit by $4 trillion during the next 10 years in ways that will be felt by Minnesotans in all walks of life, from farmers and doctors to low-income residents who get help with heating bills.
Even as Republicans criticized Monday’s budget for raising taxes and spending, the new White House blueprint would cut farm payments by more than $30 billion in the next decade, shrinking the federal largesse that supports one-fifth of Minnesota’s economy.
Drug companies and hospitals that treat Medicare patients also are looking at some $267 billion in total cuts during the next decade, part of a broader initiative to squeeze efficiencies out of the national health care system for seniors that was pioneered in Minnesota.
Amid other domestic initiatives, the government’s low-income energy assistance program is slated for $452 million in cuts in the next year alone, a hit that is expected to further reduce grants that were reduced last year in Minnesota by an average of $100 per family.
"They’re easy targets because they the poor have no influence," said Catherine Fair, director of the energy assistance program at the Community Action Partnership of Ramsey and Washington Counties.
But even the well-heeled and influential farm lobby is expected to share in the belt-tightening -- a partial recognition of strong commodity prices and a relatively healthy farm economy in recent years.
"Farm payments made to people getting good prices for crops is a hard sell," said Doug Peterson, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union. "We want support and a safety net for bad times."
The president’s proposed savings in health care raised a chorus of concerns from hospitals that treat the elderly and those that train children’s doctors.
Roughly $155 billion comes from making pharmaceutical companies give prescription discounts to Medicare recipients the way they now give discounts to people on Medicaid, the government’s health insurance for the poor.
The other $112 billion primarily targets hospitals, not doctors. The savings aim to promote efficiency and to get rid of payments that the government says exceed the actual cost of patient care.
Hospitals may suffer
Hospitals in Minnesota stand to take a big hit if Congress agrees to the budget proposal.
"In Minnesota, we’re already paid below our costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients," said Lawrence Massa, president and CEO of the Minnesota Hospital Association. "These across-the-board cuts could be devastating."
At Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, the mood was equally sour because of a proposal to cut two-thirds of a program used to train pediatricians and pediatric specialists, such as heart doctors and surgeons. Obama proposes to trim annual funding from $265 million to $88 million nationally.
"We currently get $2.9 million a year," said Children’s President and CEO Dr. Alan Goldbloom. "It looks like we’ll be down to $800,000. We will have to cut the number of pediatricians we train.
"The long-term issue here is for the nation’s children and who is going to treat them."
But as with any presidential budget, the document Obama released Monday is widely viewed as a negotiating position in an election-year battle over taxes, spending and the national debt.
