As lawmakers in Washington convene the first and only committee hearing today on the revised health-care proposal, outgoing Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove said the proposal could create chaos for health providers.
Backers of the Republican health proposal tout the benefits of block grant funding in the proposal. The new funding mechanism allows each state to govern regulations such as making sure people with preexisting health conditions are guaranteed coverage, and mandating that employers cover preventative care visits such as prenatal care.
A different plan in each state is one of the flaws of the proposal, Cosgrove said.
“We could wind up with 50 different health-care plans across the country. This would start in 2020 and it would only give two years to set up that sort of administrative policy and certainly having 50 different administrative functions would not be terribly efficient,” he said.
The proposal would also decrease the amount of federal money coming to Ohio and with some 22 percent of Ohio hospitals already operating in the red, it could result in some them closing, Cosgrove said.
