Health Service Cuts Would Go Deep

Health care is not optional. That message came through loud and clear at a news conference Monday where Suffolk County legislators asked the state to reconsider draconian budget cuts to health care in Suffolk County.

Proposed funding cuts as the April 1 state budget deadline looms could hamstring two health centers, including the on Pulaski Road in Greenlawn, and force $9.2 million in cuts at other county health centers through reduced services. Those cuts are unacceptable, legislators agreed.

Two health centers, the Dolan center operated by and the Elsie Owens Health Center in Coram, operated under contract by , would lose their county funding and could be closed in July under one budget scenario, saving $3.7 million, with 20% cuts applied to the other eight health centers for the remaining $9.2 million in savings. The other scenario would have 30% cuts at all 10 health centers.

It’s a question of which cuts are “less disgusting,” said Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy.

With the proposed cuts, “New York State is changing the face of the way public health is being delivered,” Levy said at a news conference Monday in the lobby of the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge. The state also is asking for givebacks to the year 2008 for funds spent on certain previously covered categories of health care.

The cuts are part of what Levy called a triple whammy affecting Suffolk County: While Suffolk would absorb the same cuts as other counties, it faces an additional $20 million burden of retroactive cuts for health care delivered since 2008, plus, Levy said, 17% of the statewide health care cuts would apply to Suffolk “and we have 8% of the population of the entire state.”

The state says it is weeding out what it refers to as “optional services” and also cutting reimbursements for some programs – the county crime lab, emergency medical services volunteer training, health care for those 21 and older, visiting nurse health services, dental care for children under 21, and early intervention service coordination for special needs children under age 3.

“Don’t tell us that’s optional,” Levy said. “Get to work and put this money back for core services.”

The county could choose to continue to fund the services lost in the state cuts by passing the costs to local taxpayers with a supermajority vote of the Legislature, three-quarters in favor, but there is no local money for that, Levy noted, especially when the county also faces $50 million in mandated pension costs from the state.

The Dolan Family Health Center may not close if the $3 million in county funds is lost, said Terence Smith, administrator, but it would be a challenge to keep it running when that $3 million pays 42% of the center’s budget of $7 million.

"He should not say close when we own it," Smith said. The private center owns its operating certificate and could only be closed if the board of trustees of Huntington Hospital votes to close it, Smith noted.

“It would be an incredible hardship” to lose that funding, Smith said. “If we lose 42% of our funding, it would affect services. This is a very large cut here, it will redefine the program.”

The center has 28,000 patient visits a year, from about 9,000 patients.

“That’s 5% of the population of the township of Huntington,” Smith said.

The funding cuts apply to those over the age of 21, and that’s between 4,000-4,500 adults. If things aren’t worked out with the state, “I see people getting sicker, not getting health care, and then needing more extensive services and more expensive care,” Smith said. The use of the emergency room and other county health care facilities will jump, as will qualifications for Medicaid.

However, Smith remains optimistic a workable solution can be reached with the state. “It’s our responsibility to figure out how to stay in business,” he said.

There’s always been a battle over funding for the Dolan Center, said , Suffolk County majority leader. Funding in 2008 was $3,086 million; 2009, $3 million; and in 2010, $2,887 million. This year funding was recommended at $2.3 million, there were cuts and then $504,000 was restored during negotiations. Then, he said, the three Huntington legislators – Cooper, Lou D’Amaro, D-Huntington Station, and Steven Stern, D-Dix Hills – each put in $10,000 from their ombudsman accounts to round out county funding, leaving the Dolan only $30,000 short of what it spent in 2010.

Closing Dolan would be extremely shortsighted, Cooper said, and would just postpone the cost. Many of the adults treated there have serious, ongoing diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.

“They would lose access to preventive care at the Dolan. They’ll become even sicker and more likely to require increased services. The cuts would have deep impacts and affect real lives,” he said.

Cooper said he will work with Levy to find cuts if the state cannot be persuaded to address the budget deficit, but he will not support cutting all funds to the Dolan Center. If the county has to absorb the state health care cuts, Cooper said he will work to spread it equally across all facilities.

D'Amaro questioned if the bureaucrats who proposed the health cuts had an inkling of the impact of their decisions. “You’re talking about impacting real lives, real people. It’s budgeting with an ax instead of a scalpel,” D’Amaro said. “It’s obvious no thought went into these proposed cuts. Those dollars turn into real people.”

Elected officials must set priorities and to him, health care is a priority, D'Amaro said. "If we have to choose between [funding] a health center and cutting back services at a state park this summer, then cut back services."