California senators fight for money to reimburse hospitals for caring for the poor

Senate debate over a Democratic-backed health care bill is underway and will continue until Christmas. The measure is supposed to cover the uninsured - eventually.

California’s two senators are trying to come up with extra money to help pay the hospital bills for those without insurance today.

Hospitals that treat the uninsured already get some help from Washington. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California says it’s called DISH – or disproportionate share.

"That’s funds that go to hospitals that treat folks who don’t have any insurance and still won’t," Boxer says. "The real indigents."

The health care bill passed by the House gradually reduces the amount of DISH money paid to hospitals for indigent care as more and more Americans are covered by health insurance.

In the Senate bill, the DISH reductions are greater and come faster. California’s other Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein says that’s bad news for the Golden State’s large public hospitals that treat large numbers of poor patients.

Feinstein says when she was mayor of San Francisco, she was particularly proud of San Francisco General. "During my tenure, we built a new hospital," she says. "We had six trauma teams, 24/7. It was a great place. And it uses a lot of disproportionate share funding."

Senator Feinstein says that funding would be cut and the cuts concern her greatly.

But it’s not just public hospitals that rely on DISH dollars. In LA County, nearly three dozen private hospitals qualify for additional federal money. That means one in four patients who walk in the door have no insurance or are covered by the state's health insurance program called Medi-Cal.

Senators Boxer and Feinstein want DISH hospital reimbursement to continue until the percentage of insured patients rises.