Harvard again flexed its lobbying muscles in Washington earlier this year, helping to win back government funding for teaching hospitals after deep cuts put hospitals across the country in the red.

On Nov. 19, the Medicare, Medicaid & SCHIP Balanced Budget Refinement Act was signed into effect, increasing funding for teaching hospitals from the rock-bottom levels set in 1997's Balanced Budget Act.

Teaching hospitals are attached to medical schools and give medical students and residents hands-on training. The hospitals are generally more expensive to run than regular hospitals because of the extra expense involved in teaching and research, and because they generally cater to a sicker clientele because of their reputations for good care.

Medicare--the federal health insurance program for the elderly--usually subsidized these hospitals by allocating extra funding per Medicare patient served.

The Balanced Budget Act in 1997 capped the total amount of Medicare funding and began actually scaling it back. For instance, in Massachusetts, teaching hospitals were originally slated to get $1.85 billion in Medicare funding in 2002. With the cuts mandated by the Balanced Budget Act, they were expected to get only $1.55 billion that year.

Harvard officials, including President Neil L. Rudenstine, spoke out against this reduction, and Harvard's lobbyist joined advocates for other schools in pushing for a revision of the act.

'Bleeding Red Ink'

According to Dr. Joseph B. Martin, dean of Harvard Medical School (HMS), funding for teaching hospitals is especially important because many medical school teachers are paid only by the hospitals where they work.