File photo of a hospital hallway.
Dr. Daniel Derksen, professor at UA's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, and director of the Center for Rural Health. Arizona health care providers are concerned that Congress is considering health care reform that would have devastating impacts on the state’s most vulnerable populations.
Congress is considering three different versions of reform. All three would raise the number of uninsured back to pre-Affordable Care Act levels, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
"All you’re doing when you throw people off the coverage is you’re shifting the cost through a hidden tax to our safety net providers in the state: our rural hospitals, our critical access hospitals, the physicians the nurses and the other health providers that practice with a mission to care for people regardless of an ability to pay," said Dan Derksen the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Rural Health.
In Arizona, almost 2 million people rely on the state’s Medicaid program and another 21,000 on KidsCare.
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