WASHINGTON — Even as President-elect Barack Obama plans an ambitious push to expand health coverage nationwide, states are slashing health services to their poorest residents amid the economic downturn.
The unprecedented cuts in public assistance come as millions of Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance.
In many cases, the cuts are so deep that even the massive federal rescue package being assembled on Capitol Hill may not be enough to restore services being eliminated in the burgeoning crisis, health officials warn.
And the faltering economy has all but killed trailblazing state campaigns to expand coverage for the working poor -- once seen as hopeful signs for national healthcare reform.
Illinois' senior citizens are facing the traumatic prospect of being moved from nursing homes teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as the homes wait for months to be paid by the floundering state government.
South Carolina has cut treatment for low-income women under 40 with breast or cervical cancer and stopped providing nutritional supplements for people with kidney failure.
In southern Nevada, cancer patients without health coverage no longer have a place to get chemotherapy after the state's largest public hospital stopped providing outpatient oncology services.
"This is exactly the time when we should be beefing up services," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a leading consumer advocacy group. "Instead, we are unraveling the safety net to the point where it may not be possible to stitch it back together again."
Congressional Democrats hope to begin offering some help today, as the House takes up legislation to expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, a top priority of the incoming administration.
The expansion, which could extend coverage to an additional 4 million low-income children, was vetoed twice by President Bush in 2007, but is expected to easily win approval now.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also at work on a stimulus package that could include as much as $100 billion to bail out Medicaid, the primary federally funded health program for the poor administered by the states.
That aid package is expected to require states to maintain some of the medical services currently on the chopping block, though it may come too late to reverse many cuts already made.
