An Early Christmas for this Blogster

   Dozens of public hospitals in Florida are facing a host of radical proposals ranging from their sale to private corporations, to an end to their exclusive use of locally generated tax dollars – this based on a draft of recommendations from the Commission on Review of Taxpayer funded Hospital Districts.

   Created by Florida Gov. Rick Scott nearly a year ago, the just released draft of the Commission’s final report calls for an end to Broward’s two tax-funded Hospital District’s which rank among the nation’s ten largest public healthcare systems.

   Here in Broward, the draft for the Commission’s final report due next month, recommends the North Broward Hospital District (dba as Broward Health) and the South Broward Hospital District (dba as Memorial Healthcare) be:
   (1) Replaced by a single Healthcare Tax District which will reimburse the cost of Indigent patient care at a hospital of their of the choice.
   (2) The nine public hospitals owned by the two Broward healthcare districts will be “de-coupled” and sold to private health care entities which may be either for profit or 501c3 corporations.
   (3) The politically-appointed seven member commissions charged with running the two districts will be replaced by a single county-wide health care district board charged with funding indigent care via an money-following-the-patient basis in the manner of a local HM0.

   The Commission’s proposals deal squarely with issues this author has championed for more than a decade as a tax-paying resident of the North Broward Hospital District – namely that the District continues to use millions of local tax-dollars to engage in unfair competition with the private hospitals in its market area by: