Private Florida Hospitals Sue Miami-Dade County for Reimbursement of Indigent Care

Seven private Miami hospitals have filed suit against the Miami-Dade County Commission in an attempt to receive reimbursement for providing indigent care, the Miami Herald reports. In Miami-Dade County, money raised from sales and property taxes goes to Jackson Memorial Hospital, a public facility. The state passed a law last year that would redistribute a percentage of Jackson's property tax dollars to a "new authority that would oversee indigent health services countywide," the Herald reports. The new group would determine which hospitals receive the money ($10 million in the first year and $15 million in the second). The county, however, has refused to implement the law and passed an ordinance stating that the county would not abide by it. The county says the law "violates the county's home rule charter" and the County Commission's "ability to set it's own rules." Assistant County Attorney Thomas Logue added, "The Florida Legislature can't pass a law saying Miami-Dade County has to have a special mechanism for giving this money away. Our problem with this law is that you are diverting money from Jackson, which is one of the great success stories in South Florida." But the suit alleges that state law requires the county to divert some of those funds to private facilities with "heavy indigent loads." The lawsuit says the current payment system gives Jackson "escalating cash reserves that have grown as high as $300 million." Last year, Jackson received $200 million in sales and property taxes, the Herald reports. "Not one of the other Miami-Dade County hospitals or their medical staffs, although providing substantial uncompensated indigent health care services, has received a single dollar of public compensation," the suit maintains. Lawyers for the private hospitals, which include Mercy Hospital, Pan American Hospital, North Shore Hospital, Palmetto General Hospital, Parkway Regional Medical Center, Homestead Hospital and Hialeah Hospital, maintain that "state law should take precedence" (Chandler, Miami Herald, 2/21).
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