Pennsylvania and New Jersey Provided Almost $2B in Indigent Care Last Year

Last year, Pennsylvania and New Jersey provided nearly $2 billion in charity care, according to the states' respective hospital associations, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Under federal law, hospitals receiving federal funds are required to provide emergency or short-term care to anyone, regardless of insurance coverage, but hospitals can turn away indigent people if they determine patients do not require emergency care. Last year, New Jersey reimbursed its hospitals for about 33% of its $965 million in charity care, using mostly funds from special state taxes on smokers and employers. Pennsylvania, which has no taxpayer-funded reimbursement program for indigent care, reimbursed its hospitals for less than 10% of $975 million in charity care, using funds from the 1997 national tobacco settlement, officials said. Although it is not known how much of charity care is given to uninsured documented and undocumented immigrants, "it is an issue," Nancy Bell, vice president for health care finance and insurance at the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, said. Ron Czajkowski, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Hospital Association, added that caring for immigrants in New Jersey, where 18% of the population was born abroad, "is a major funding issue," the Inquirer reports (Ginsberg, Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/26).