TX Children's hospitals face brunt of Medicaid cuts

When Steve Woerner, president/CEO of Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, looks at the budget state lawmakers are debating, he sees red—profit-dashing, service-slashing red. Despite some efforts to lessen the blow to pediatric health care providers, Texas' proposed budget cuts will likely have a disproportionate effect on children's hospitals, which treat the state's youngest and poorest patients. The financial implications will not mean halting operations, or necessarily curbing patient care, children's hospital advocates say. But it will mean cutting back on expansions needed to serve a growing population of children, and on efforts to recruit and retain the best specialists and faculty, said Ben Melson, CFO at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.