cuts went into effect and major cuts are being felt. cancer clinics have had to turn away medicare patients because it s expensive to treat people with chemo drugs and stay opened at the same time. and head start is closing earlier in the day and some are dropping children leaving low-income parents to struggle for proper care. and 149 airports are going to lose their air traffic controllers. tom, this is certainly of concern but no effect on the big airports so far, correct? no. i think we need to underscore that. we are really talking, as you said, small airports, 149 of them. we re talking about cities like the small airport that services ohio state university, glacier national park, michigan, kansas, mississippi, north carolina,
clinics across the country are turning away thousands of medicare patients. they are blaming the sequester is. ted joins us. tell me, ted, why are the cancer centers turning away medicare patients? well, the problem is, greta, is that the sequester cut medicare across-the-board by 2%. and the biggest problem here with cancer clinics is unlike cutting services by 2% that physicians provide it is cutting the underlying cost of the drug. you are talking about taking a fixed cost for a drug that a cancer clinic dispenses to a patient and administers to patient and cuting that underlying cost. the problem is you have a clinic sitting there and saying i have a choice, do i continue on treating these medicare patients in the clinic as oh opposed to send them elsewhere to the hospital for the treatment for example and incur a loss with each one and ultimately not being able to
robert ebert has died. he was 70 years old. now back to hardball. welcome back to hardball. remember when republicans championed $85 billion worth of spending cuts known as the sequester? they re saying, where s the problem? no one even cares. the budget cuts are causing real problems for real people. catch this headline on the front page of the washington post just today. cancer clinics turn away patients citing sequester. the post reports cuts across the country turned away medicare patients blaming the sequester budget cuts. colleges say the reduced funding which took effect for medicare
movements are getting stronger. definitely they are losing money. i will have to get back to you about how much exactly. all right. zain asher, thank you very much. appreciate it. cancer clinics now across the country are being hit hard by the forced spending cuts. they are now having to turn away medicare patients. and lisa sylvester is joining us from d.c. to explain why it s happening and how it s affecting some treatments especialspecifi when you talk about chemotherapy people need. the quester cuts took effect for medicare on april 1st and it was a 2% reduction in payments to medicare providers. but this is hitting those clinics particularly hard. the reason is that cancer drugs have to be administered by a doctor. so that 2% cut, well, it has to come from somewhere. and if you think about it this way, the price of the drug is fixed. so then it has to come directly from the clinic s overhead. and what many cancer clinics are saying is, look, we just can t
cancer clinics are already operating at slim margins. what the 2% means is they ll be reimbursed at less than the market cost for drugs. for the drugs which are under water right now which tend to be the more expensive ones if you continue to administer them while you re losing money because the cost is so high practices won t stay in business. reporter: a survey by the community oncology alliance found 72% of cancer clinics will refuse to take on new medicare patients or ask existing patients to find treatment elsewhere. an independent study found the difference between treatment at a hospital and care at a clinic is $6500 annually. a group of cancer organizations has written letters to lawmakers to press the agency overseeing the medicare program to exempt cancer drugs and treatment from the 2% cuts. the centers for medicare and medicaid services won t comment on the issue. but thomas has lots to say. they make laws and we have to