Hospitals back Medicaid expansion

Calling it a position that makes "good fiscal and policy sense," the Wisconsin Hospital Association announced Friday that it supports expanding Medicaid as called for, but no longer required, under the federal health reform law. The hospital association noted that over the past five years uncompensated care at Wisconsin hospitals has increased from nearly $700 million per year to more than $1.1 billion. That's on top of $2.6 billion in impending Medicare reimbursement cuts that will be partly used, the hospital association says, to fund the law's coverage expansion. (WHN, 2/4)