Distrust surrounds vote on TGH lien law

State legislators keep alive a bill to take millions from the county's reserve fund, just in case the county doesn't act.

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

TAMPA -- After two years of debate, Hillsborough County commissioners are now promising to pass a lien law to help Tampa General Hospital.

But just in case they don't, state legislators are keeping alive a bill that would automatically transfer $6.5-million from county coffers to the financially strapped hospital.

That has County Commission Chairwoman Pat Frank upset at legislators, who she thought had reached a different agreement on the issue last week. The County Commission plans to vote on the deal today.

"In my book, a deal is a deal," Frank said Tuesday.

She wants legislators to drop language from the bill that would force Hillsborough to give Tampa General $6.5-million if the commission doesn't pass a lien law. If the lien law is adopted, only $3.5-million would go to the hospital. In either case, the money would come from the county's $106-million reserve fund for indigent health care.

Hospital officials say the lien law will help them collect money from patients who do not pay their bills but who later receive large insurance settlements or damage awards from lawsuits. The right to collect unpaid bills from such payments would be worth about $3-million a year to Tampa General, which has lost $30-million since 1997.

"The trust level of this delegation and the County Commission on a scale of 1 to 10 is below 5," state Sen. John Grant, R-Carrollwood, said Tuesday. "We have heard them talk for a long time about what they are going to do, and they don't do it."

The commission had debated passing a lien law for two years, but only moved to do so after legislators threatened this spring to take millions from the county's reserve fund.

Tampa General, which converted from a public hospital to a private non-profit in 1997, needs more than $11-million by October to keep from violating an agreement with its New York bond insurer. A long-term cure to the hospital's financial failures could take $30-million a year.

The County Commission's promise to pass the lien law depends on Tampa General's private board agreeing to 10 points outlined in a proposal last week.

In it, commissioners asked to appoint two members to TGH's private board and change parts of TGH's lease with the county hospital authority.

TGH's board decided Tuesday to let commissioners informally recommend people for the hospital's board, TGH board member Jeremy Ross said. The hospital does not want to give the commission formal appointments because that would force TGH's board meetings into the open under Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, he said.

Legislators don't want to force TGH to change its lease or put county-appointed people on its board. "I just want to save the patient from dying," Grant said Tuesday.

- David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com

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