October 2, 2010 | 9:36 AM | By

Help On The Way For Safety Net Hospitals, BMC and CHA

FILED UNDER: Insurance, Money, Politics, boston medical center, Cambridge Health Alliance, hospital finances, medicaid

The federal government rides in with a $435 million aid package for Massachusetts hospitals that treat predominantly poor patients, with the largest chunk going to Boston Medical Center, The Boston Globe reports.

The plan, negotiated with Governor Deval Patrick’s administration over the past seven months, includes $180 million for BMC and gives Cambridge Health Alliance, which runs the state’s only public hospital, an extra $163 million in federal Medicaid funding over two years.

The money, except for the Cambridge Health Alliance portion, must clear a remaining hurdle before it is transferred into the hospitals’ coffers. The federal government will provide $335 million, but Massachusetts must come up with about $100 million. The state Legislature must authorize the use of the state funds, language that has been held up as part of Republican objections to a larger spending bill.

About the author

Blogger, CommonHealth Rachel Zimmerman worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal for 10 years, most recently covering health and medicine out of the paper’s Boston bureau. Rachel has also written for The New York Times, the (now-defunct) Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the alternative newspaper Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., among other publications. Rachel co-wrote a book about birth, published by Bantam/Random House, and spent 2008 as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rachel lives in Cambridge with her husband and two daughters. View all posts by Rachel Zimmerman →

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