Congressman Peterson visits local hospitals: U.S. Rep. looks for input on new health care bill

March 14--U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson visited the offices of the Daily Journal yesterday to talk about what he's doing now that there's language on the health care bill. Part of Peterson's goal is also traveling to local area hospitals and receiving their feedback and what it means for their particular situation.

"In Minnesota, with Obamacare, the federal law screwed up a system that actually worked pretty well," Peterson said. "Because it undid their high-risk pool and it undid their Minnesota Care and put it into this exchange that didn't work. So the federal law screwed up a pretty good system that we had."

Peterson believes that new language on the health care bill could cause problems for Minnesotans with cuts to Medicaid because nursing homes are going to be put in jeopardy.

"While the hospital in Fergus Falls isn't as Medicaid dependent as some are it's still a big part of their bottom line," Peterson said.

Peterson is also concerned about the language of the new bill and how it affects his district. Under current statutes, a critical access hospital is any hospital that has less than 25 beds, Breckenridge, Elbow Lake, Perham and Hallock for example. The main benefit of being a critical access hospital is 101 percent reimbursement, so that those hospitals cannot lose money. Many of these hospitals exist in Peterson's district and are able to stay in business because of these provisions.

Hospitals in Fergus Falls, Hutchinson, Detroit Lakes, Willmar, Thief River Falls and Marshall are called tweeners. Which means they're too big to be considered a critical access hospital but they're not the size of a Sanford or a hospital in the Twin Cities, which has a different reimbursement situation.

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