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Pasco must plan now for health care needs

A proposed sales tax referendum to expand health care for the needy suffered a quick death this week. But, simply ignoring the symptoms of the medically uninsured in Pasco won't make them go away.

Less than three weeks after public officials acknowledged they were researching a proposed sales tax increase for health care, County Administrator John Gallagher pulled the plug, saying it was premature to seek the referendum in November.

Gallagher's candor in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times likely saved the County Commission from election-year political machinations. Still, it is imperative for the health care community and elected officials to continue the public dialogue and to explore alternative methods for treating the estimated 70,000 Pasco residents with no medical insurance.

The sales tax idea was the victim of poor timing. Homeowners are facing substantial increases in their insurance premiums while gasoline prices continue to hover at more than $2.25 a gallon. Voters increased the sales tax a penny on the dollar less than two years ago to finance construction of schools and roads, buy public safety equipment and preserve environmentally sensitive land. At the same time, state coffers in Tallahassee are so flush with cash, members of both political parties are figuring out ways to give it away via tax breaks and refunds. Pasco County also could consider spending exuberance this year due to continued growth in the property tax rolls.

And it didn't help that personal motives became an immediate concern because state Sen. Mike Fasano, one of the leading proponents, is on the payroll of Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, earning $50,000 annually as part-time director of community and legal affairs.

With financing questions now in the background, the health care task force can focus on devising a long-term strategy to provide medical treatment to the uninsured. Orange County's network of 20 hospitals and clinics is being examined as a potential model. Polk County, which approved a sales tax increase in 2004, distributes grant money to existing agencies to expand their services.

The task in Pasco is augmenting the work of two charitable health clinics - Good Samaritan Clinic in New Port Richey and Premiere Community HealthCare Group in Dade City. Good Samaritan, which sees only the uninsured, had 5,000 patient visits last year. About half of the 12,000 patients at Premiere have no insurance.

Fasano is seeking $800,000 in the state budget to allow Premiere to expand to west Pasco. That is a start. He also said he would advocate a state matching grant program for counties that establish their own efforts to assist the medically uninsured. County commissioners should consider whether indigent care should be an annual line-item in the budget after exhausting an account established with the proceeds from selling two county-owned hospitals in the early 1980s.

Florida Hospital Zephyrhills and North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey are contractually obligated to provide indigent health care under the terms of those hospital sales. But all five of Pasco's hospitals share the burden. They provided $26-million in uncompensated care in 2003, a 205 percent increase from three years earlier. They, too, should be eager to help offer solutions beyond a government subsidy.

Nobody disputes the diagnosis of an overburdened health care system. Devising an adequate way to treat a needy population shouldn't be delayed just because the payment plan is in limbo.

[Last modified February 9, 2006, 01:30:24]