Manatee County delays initiating health care study

EAST COUNTY — Manatee County officials have tried to frame the pending expiration of a health care trust fund as more than a poor-people problem, even though the fund acts as a payer of last resort for the needy.

In June of last year, Manatee County voters rejected to pay an extra 0.5% sales tax to replenish the fund, which government officials say will run out in 2015.

Now, the county is pushing for the launch of a health care study that would not only provide a potential solution to the near-empty trust fund, but also provide context for an overall health care plan.

The Manatee Board of County Commissioners, worried about how the public would interpret the purpose and the cost of the study, voted May 6 to delay initiating it.

The board unanimously agreed that it would seek community input before paying $196,000 for the yearlong study, to be conducted by the University of South Florida Public Health with oversight from the Manatee Chamber Foundation.

Commissioners will discuss the proposal again at their June 17 meeting.

Before then, the county will host two work sessions — at 6 p.m. May 28 and June 3, at to-be-determined locations.

Money to pay for the study would come from the health care trust fund, which provides about $9 million annually for medical and mental care for uninsured and/or low income people. Manatee County has positioned itself a payer of last resort to the county’s for-profit hospitals (see sidebar).

A health care study conducted by USF in 2008 at a cost of $267,000 proposed that improving access to primary care would keep sick people out of emergency rooms, where the most expensive type of care occurs.

County staff says the new study would be more focused and have an action plan. 

“This is not an academic exercise,” said John Petrila, a health lawyer who will lead the study on behalf of USF. “We will go into the community and develop consensus and ideas.”

As part of the study, Petrila said he would interview health care providers, business leaders and consumers, some with insurance and others without.

This is not just an issue of indigent health care,” Petrila said. “It’s an issue of community’s health and it is fundamentally a business issue.”

Where the dollars go
Manatee County currently spends $23 million annually on community health care, including $14 million from property-tax revenues and $9 million from a trust fund that is scheduled to expire in 2015.

The largest portion of the $9 million covers payments for patient treatment at Manatee Memorial — about $5.6 million a year.

Medicaid matching consumes about $4.7 million per year of the $14 million from property taxes.

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected].