Travis County, Texas, Residents To Discuss Formation of Hospital District To Pay for Indigent Care

A group of Texas residents plans to meet on April 16 to discuss creating a hospital district in Travis County as a way to pay for health services for low-income, uninsured people, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The meeting will be held in the courtroom of Probate Judge Guy Herman, who has collected more than 200 signatures requesting the hospital district issue be placed on the county's November ballot. According to the American-Statesman, Travis County, which includes the city of Austin, is the only "major urban center" in the state without a hospital district, and politicians have talked "for decades" about creating one. Under the current system, Austin provides the majority of indigent care for both city and county residents through Brackenridge Hospital and public clinics, which are owned by the city. Around Texas, hospital districts, which take responsibility for all indigent care provided within the districts, are financed by a combination of sales and property taxes, along with funds from federal grants and the state's portion of the national tobacco settlement. It is unclear how a hospital district in Travis County would operate and how much it would cost taxpayers to fund such a system. Further, the creation of another taxing district might prove a "hard sell" in a slow economy, the American-Statesman reports. But Charlotte Flynn, head of the Austin chapter of the senior advocacy group Gray Panthers, which is hosting the meeting, said, "We're in a crisis, and we need to look at what we can get now. We can't wait another 10 years" (Quin, Austin American-Statesman, 4/15).