After Hahnemann University Hospital went into bankruptcy and closed this summer, a group of state senators urged the Wolf administration to redistribute the Center City institution’s subsidies for the poor and uninsured to other hospitals that serve North Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Moving the Hahnemann money to Einstein, Jefferson, and Temple — the shift sought by Philadelphia’s State Sen. Tina Tartaglione and others to prevent cascading losses at other hospitals as they picked up indigent Hahnemann patients — sounds simple, but there are challenges. Hahnemann’s $51 million in subsidies represented a slice of the $1.15 billion in state and federal Medicaid money paid to Pennsylvania hospitals last year through 37 obscure programs negotiated in Harrisburg to help pay for treating the poor. Philadelphia hospitals’ share was $535 million. The labyrinthine funding system pits hospitals across Pennsylvania against one another and forces them into backroom deals to get the funding they need to keep treating poor patients. And, it forces hospitals in the city, with a 24.5 percent poverty rate, to play politics in Harrisburg to fill the gap left by Philadelphia General Hospital’s closure more than 40 years ago.
