Trenton - More than four out of every five (82%) of all the billings for charity care in the state are generated by New Jersey’s teaching hospitals. As such charity care is a vital program for our members that depend upon the state to match federally available dollars to maintain access for the uninsured. Nevertheless - while we cannot deny the cuts hurt, they do - we understand the fiscal challenges that the state faces and why they were made.

 

In these difficult economic times, particularly for hospitals, each of us have had to make tough fiscal decisions and so we empathize with and support Governor Christie as he makes the necessary tough decisions and revisits pre-established priorities as the fiscal steward of the state. We too want the fiscal health of the state restored.

 

There is, however, one new priority that the Administration must face squarely and that is the looming shortage of physicians. Governor Corzine unwisely cut Graduate Medical Education (GME) in his last budget. We are grateful that Governor Christie did not cut GME in this initial round of budget cuts. We believe strongly that reducing funding support for training our doctors next year is “penny wise and pound foolish.” It takes three to four years to train a physician after the students are graduated from medical schools and once a residency program is cut it is nearly impossible to reconstitute it. A cut in one year is compounded every year thereafter. Just as the state has been impacted by the national economy, we must all roll up our sleeves and get to work alongside the Governor. However, when it comes to GME either we decide to support the salaries of the students and teachers, or we learn to deal with the impact of waiting longer to see a doctor or leaving the state for specialized care. The choice is one we must all make together.

 

We stand ready to help and do whatever we can to generate creative ideas to accomplish the mission. We are in a period of time when Federal stimulus dollars can be applied strategically to help us weather this fiscal storm. Funding training programs for physicians and other health care personnel is a smart way to use these dollars.