Hospitals are worried about cut in fund for the uninsured

The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals—most in poor urban and rural areas—for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The healthcare law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect. But the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States are not covered by the healthcare law. Its sponsors, seeking to sidestep the contentious debate over immigration, excluded them from the law's benefits.