Pennsylvania senators question cut to hospital funding

Even as Pennsylvania struggles with a growing budget deficit, senators questioned why Gov. Ed Rendell's administration is proposing to cut at least $20 million to hospitals that disproportionately serve Medicaid patients as well as the uninsured poor. At a budget hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee, both Democratic and Republican senators expressed concerns about Gov. Rendell's proposal to slash payments to those hospitals by roughly 15% in his proposed $29 billion budget for 2009-10.