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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Will Medicaid Cuts Cripple Arizona’s Health Care System?

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011   

PHOENIX - Arizona is expected to formally request federal permission this week to drop 280,000 people from the state's Medicaid program known as AHCCCS (Access). If the waiver is granted, medical providers are worried the result will be damage to the state's health-care system.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Jan Brewer argue that current enrollment levels are unaffordable, given next year's billion-dollar budget gap. But Chic Older, Arizona Medical Association, says the state's actions don't fix anything.

"Just because people aren't covered by insurance doesn't mean they're not going to have medical needs, and my probably biggest primary concern is that our emergency rooms, they're already the primary-care center for a huge number of people, and that is going to explode."

Older says many hospitals in the state operate on very thin margins, and picking up the costs of treating thousands more of the uninsured may threaten those facilities' survival. Arizona hospitals get an average of 20 percent of their revenue from AHCCCS, but for some it's as much as 60 percent.

Older says people with real medical emergencies, such as those incurred in the Jan. 8 Tucson shootings, could face critical delays because emergency rooms are required to accept and evaluate everyone for an appropriate level of care and how quickly it's needed.

"And we all know how important that is. Over the last two weeks, we had about as visual proof as you could possibly get for how important it is to be able to respond and respond quickly."

Older says hospitals will try to pass along the added costs of providing medical care to the uninsured, but somebody at some point will have to pay the bill.

"We as a society will end up seeing it. We'll end up seeing it in increased hospital costs, increased health-care premiums. There's no free way to do this."

Older says he understands and appreciates that the state has no money, but also believes that it's not realistic to consider using emergency rooms for primary health care as a viable solution.


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