Dole comes to aid of NC hospitals
Senator opposes federal rule that cuts health care funds
By Frank Bradley Staff writer

Submitted photo Senator Dole talks with Dr. Dan Stroup while MMC administrator Mike Stevenson looks on.

Senator Elizabeth Dole made a short visit through Clay and Cherokee counties last Friday, stopping at Murphy Medical Center and the Hinton Rural Life Center where she talked with local governmental and community leaders.

Earlier in the week, Dole was recognized by the North Carolina Hospital Association (NCHA) and presented its first "Hospital Champion" award for her leadership in the Senate to secure a moratorium on a Medicaid policy change which prevented North Carolina hospitals from losing $330 million last year.

"The Hospital Association in Raleigh recognized her not just for her efforts, but for her results," MMC administrator Mike Stevenson told the gathering when Senator Dole stopped there. "Rural medicine is most at risk with congressional budget cuts," Stevenson said. It is people like Senator Dole who work with good bipartisan support to come to the aid of hospitals."

The federal government reimburses states for a share of the costs of providing health care for low-income and uninsured patients. However, a federal rule last year was set to impose cost limits for public health care providers, which would have resulted in North Carolina hospitals losing millions of dollars and would have eliminated the safety net for these patients. Dole was able to get a one-year moratorium on the rule change. She also introduced legislation with 24 cosponsors to extend the moratorium for another year.

FRANK BRADLEY/Sentinel photo (L-R) Rufus and Betty Low Stark, Fred Sickel, Jean Higgens, Senator Dole, Sandy and Steve Jersey. Senator Dole was escorted through the Clay county Food Pantry which average giving out 175 boxes of food to local residents.

"The proposed medicaid rule change wold present significant and costly challenges for North Carolina hospitals not just to the detriment of Medicaid patients, but to entire communities," Dole said. "With fewer federal matching dollars and no time to adequately plan for such a change, hospitals tell me they will have to reduce services, attempt greater costshifting, cut jobs and possibly require their local governments to raise taxes," she said.

In a press release from the NCHA, president Bill Pully said, "Senator Dole is consistently out front on issues concerning the health of people in our state. Her efforts during the past year have helped ensure access to care for many in North Carolina who otherwise might have been forced to travel outside their communities to receive care. Without her leadership and success, hospitals in our state would have faced not only a 20 percent cut in Medicaid fund- ing but also for some, uncertain futures. Senator Dole's actions preserved many North Carolina health care jobs and protected most communities in our state from significant negative economic impacts."

Pully went on to say, "Many of our elected leaders have come to the aid of hospitals but few have taken as decisive, timely and productive action on hospitals' behalf as has Senator Dole in the past year."

In her stop at the Hinton Center, Senator Dole toured the Clay County Food Pantry, where she was told that more than 9,000 boxes of food (Ingles milk carton boxes) were passed out free to residents of the county. Volunteer Fred Sickel told her the Food Pantry was established in the county 20 years ago so that no one would have to go without food. He said the local churches provided more than $80,000 last year to help supplement the free shipments of food the county receives from food band sources.

Senator Dole also met with several families who have been involved for the past year and a half of building their own home with support from the Hinton Rural Life Center, other churches and the federal government (USDA).

Rufus Stark, chairman of the Hinton Center board of directors and a retired minister, told Dole, "One of our mission goals was to do something about affordable housing."

The first group of these family house builders involved seven families, who worked together with assistance from the Hinton Center. Those houses are complete, except for final inspections, and the families expect to be moving in within the next two weeks.

"All we had to do was borrow $200,000 to purchase the land, and we decided to go for it. To reach out in our community in a helpful way," Stark continued.

Stark stressed the importance of federal funds in enabling this sort of self-help program, but he pointed out that "unless somebody locally gets on board, then the money never comes through."

Dole was told that the Hinton Center went through 150 applicants in the screening process to come up with seven families who qualified for the first house building program.

"A lot of them didn't qualify because of health related expenses," she was told. "Medical debt is killing people in this area," one man said. "Medical debt is not even looked at by banks, but the USDA still considers it. There needs to be some way of relaxing those standards," he said.

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