Congressional Budget Office: Option 12

Congressional Budget Office: Options for Reducing the Deficit​

John Hopkins Hospital is ranked as one of the nation’s best hospitals. According to the annual U.S. News & World Report Best Hospital list, Johns Hopkins Hospital ranks in the top five in nine specialties and No. 3 overall in the nation out of more than 4,700 hospitals ("John Hopkins University,” 2017). What is even more impressive about these rankings is the fact that John Hopkins is a teaching hospital, especially considering teaching hospitals only represent six percent of hospitals in the U.S. ("John Hopkins Medicine,” 2017). Teaching hospitals, such as John Hopkins, provide some of the best care critically injured patients and they do all of this while training the next generation of physicians. Considering the nationwide shortage of physicians in our country, teaching hospitals become even more important. However, even with the many benefits provided at teaching hospitals, in an effort to reduce federal spending on healthcare, 18 options were tabled by Congress to either decrease mandatory spending on health programs or increase revenues.

The 18 options will impact many different areas of healthcare, but one that might affect John Hopkins Hospital is Option 12. Option 12 will consolidate and reduce federal payments for graduate medical education (GME) at teaching hospitals. As of now, teaching hospitals receive funds from Medicare and Medicaid for costs related to GME. The Medicare payments cover direct graduate medical education (DGME) and indirect medical education (IME). DGME costs are for the compensation of medical residents and institutional overhead; IME costs are other teaching-related costs. There is no doubt that Medicare and Medicaid funding for GME is important to teaching hospitals, but a reduction of federal payments should not have a significant impact on the residency program itself. One reason is that some experts suggest that currently, federal payments under current law exceed hospitals’ actual teaching costs. Additionally, some teaching hospitals use part of their GME payments to care for uninsured people. Therefore, the reduction in funding may have minimal impact on the education of residents (“Congressional Budget Office,” 2016).

Conclusion​

It can be challenging deciding which options to choose because they will have some type of impact on everyone in one way or another. However, option 12, which is to reduce funding for GME has a good chance to take effect with minimal impact on teaching hospitals such as John Hopkins Hospital. John Hopkins provides high-quality care while teaching the next generation of physicians. I am confident that the loss of funding will not impact the quality of care and John Hopkins will remain one of the nation’s highest-ranked hospitals in the U.S.

References​

Congressional Budget Office. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52240

John Hopkins Medicine. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/about-us/benefits-of-a-teaching-hospital

John Hopkins University. (2017). Retrieved from https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/07/21/us-news-annual-hospital-rankings/


Dante Love