New Jersey’s health care nonprofits are bracing as President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration day approaches, concerned that health disparities will widen if federal funds diminish.
“If I were leading a nonprofit that was dependent on those kinds of grants, I’d be very worried,” said Joel Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy.
If funds are cut, it could leave people who can’t afford insurance uninsured, said Joel Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy.
“The racial, ethnic gaps will widen,” he said, as would “the gap between the well-to-do middle class and the poor.”
But Cantor said Medicaid won’t go down without a fight.
“Medicaid is a principal source of funding for, for example, the nursing home industry. It’s a key source of funding for hospitals and clinics, and it’s critically important in state budgets,” Cantor said. “You have the states lobbying for it. You have the providers lobbying for it.
“It supports a big part of our healthcare system, and the political interest follows from that,” he added.