Bill Clinton: “I will speak on a very important issue that affects every single American. It affects people all over the world. That…”

“I will speak on a very important issue that affects every single American. It affects people all over the world. That is, the future and viability of our teaching hospitals. We know we have the crown jewels of the global health care system in the teaching hospitals who train our doctors and nurses and provide research that gives breakthrough therapies and drugs that saves and lengthens lives. We know our teaching hospitals are often the treatment of last resort for the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor. Yet if we do not act by October of this year, our teaching hospitals nationwide will lose $700 million next year alone. I believe that would be a disastrous outcome. It certainly would undermine the ability of our teaching hospitals to continue to provide the funds in our health care system that all of our other hospitals, all of our entire health care infrastructure, rely upon. New York, because we have a plethora of first-class, world-renowned teaching hospitals, would lose about $230 million of that $700 million, with over half of that falling directly on our leading-edge teaching hospitals. In 1 year alone, New York teaching hospitals will lose $120 million in Medicare payments because of the effects of the balanced budget amendment, which have slashed hospital reimbursements by $100 billion more than the CBO originally estimated. That is a huge amount of money.…”