President Bush's proposed budget for the fiscal year 2009 will cut health care funding in upstate New York by $2.4 billionover the next five years, including an almost $10 million loss in Cayuga County, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and a state health care organization.

Schumer criticized the president's budget Wednesday, announcing in a statement that the proposal would slash Medicare funding to hospitals, as well as cut funds to nursing homes and graduate medical education. The statement also included a report that listed the amount of funding hospitals would lose on a county-by-county basis.

According to the report, which cites data supplied by the Healthcare Association of New York State, hospital losses in Cayuga County look to total $798,000 in the 2009 fiscal year -- which runs from --- which starts on Oct. 1, 2008 -- and $9,395,000 over the next five years because of proposed cuts to Medicare.

"This budget gives the meat axe to hospitals to every community of New York," Schumer stated. "Instead of cutting the legs out from under our health care system, we should be giving it the resources it needs to flourish and modernize.

White House officials are defending the proposed budget, stating it will not affect Americans' access to health care. During a press conference Monday, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle said the proposed budget is a way of "bending the growth curve" on Medicare, and that 50 million seniors in the U.S. will see their premiums come down under the plan.

For more on this story, read Thursday's edition of The Citizen.