"It's estimated that roughly 18% of all Santa Clara County cancer patients will be admitted to the Sobrato Cancer Center, located at Valley Medical Center in San Jose. The state-of-the-art facility doesn't turn anyone away, be it low-income people on public health plans or those who lost their insurance after starting treatment at a private hospital. Early diagnoses, infusion services, chemotherapy and multi-disciplinary care help keep these patients out of already-full emergency rooms."
""If there are going to be cuts, patients are going to have to wait longer, and that is actually going to impact their prognosis. That's the hard truth," Nam Cho, a radiation oncologist and medical director of the Sobrato Cancer Center, told San José Spotlight. "The worst thing that we have to say to a patient is, 'I don't have a space for you today.' But that could absolutely become the rule instead of the exception.""
A five-eighths-cent county sales tax (Measure A) passed with 57% approval and is expected to soften federal Medicaid cuts but will not fully prevent funding losses for Santa Clara County hospitals. H.R. 1 cut $1 trillion from Medicaid, and Medi-Cal reimbursements remain the largest funding source for county hospitals. The Sobrato Cancer Center handles roughly 18% of county cancer patients, about 40,000 visits yearly, and does not turn away low-income or newly uninsured patients. Capacity is routinely reached, and funding reductions could increase wait times, worsen prognoses, and risk closures or service reductions.
Read at San Jose Spotlight
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