Hillary Clinton Criticizes Bush’s Proposed FY 2003 Budget for Cutting Funds To Teaching Hospitals

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Feb. 20 criticized President Bush's fiscal year 2003 budget proposal for cuts it makes in funding for New York hospitals, saying that "patient care would suffer." Newsday reports that overall, Bush's plan would cut health care services in New York by $1.7 billion, and of that, $230 million would be cut from the state's hospitals. Speaking at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, Clinton said that more than half of the cuts to hospitals would come from teaching hospitals, which care for many poor and uninsured patients. "What we're seeing in the Bush budget is a code blue situation for American teaching hospitals." She added, "The emergency has been sounded. The patient is in distress and can literally expire if we don't stand up and muster public opinion and make clear what is at stake." Newsday reports that under Bush's budget, New York-Presbyterian Hospital would lose $10 million in the first year and $55 million over five years. Mount Sinai Hospital would lose $8.3 million in the first year and $44 million over five years. Nationwide, teaching hospitals would lose $700 million under Bush's budget plan, Clinton said. "The size of these cuts, I have no doubt, make it necessary to lay off people, to close down services, to make very hard choices between what you can and can't do," she added. Clinton said she planned to introduce amendments to the budget package to "undo the health care cuts." She said, "Everyone is on board for national security and homeland security. But when it comes to health security and economic security, all of a sudden we're being asked to make sacrifices" (Ramirez, Newsday, 2/20).