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Children’s Hospitals Face Life-threatening Cuts

February 27th, 2012 by Mike Vasilinda

Florida’s fourteen children’s hospitals are facing cuts ranging from 98 million in the Senate budget to just under 50 million in the House budget. Parents call the cuts devastating, and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, parents from across the state went to the Capitol today to say, “please don’t do this.”

A Tampa mother with a wheelchair bound daughter,

It could be you, it could be your child that’s in this situation,” Tisha West said.

an Orlando father who was told his son would only live hours,

J.P. will enter the third grade next year,” Jeff Cousins said.

A Ft. Lauderdale mother whose daughter was born premature.

Our lives would be very, very different if these things weren’t made available to us,” Susan Elmore said.

All came to the Capitol to complain that cuts to Children’s hospitals could cost lives.

These cuts may spell the end of programs that are saving children’s lives,” Lindy Kennedy with the Safety Net Hospital Alliance said.

Keith and Tammy Smith’s daughter Rachel spent the summer on a ventilator waiting for a new heart. Monday she was with her parents. Keith says without medicaid funding, the family couldn’t afford Rachel’s prescriptions.

She got real weak,” Keith Smith said. “To see her up, walking about now, is just a real miracle.”

Lawmakers have just over a week to get their budgets done and there are significant differences between the way the House and the Senate treat children’s hospitals.

We asked Senator Joe Negron, the man in charge of healthcare funding, what he would say to the parents.

Our goal between now and when session ends is to reduce and mitigate the rate reductions as best as we can,” Negron said.

In the end, the programs are likely to see some cuts. But whether that saves money is up in the air, since many parents will just start showing up at emergency rooms where care is much more expensive.

None of the parents who went to Tallahassee today said they ever thought they would need government assistance for their children. But two of every three children served in a children’s hospital receive Medicaid assistance.

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