Our earlier post on the North lake Hospital District included a link to the Daily Commercial's op ed column supporting the continuation of the hospital tax. That is even though the law establishing the Hospital Tax District in North lake County had NO conditions on how the funds were to be spent, and NO specifications for oversight procedures, and NO requirements for the Hospitals to provide specific audit trails of how the funds were to be spent. The Daily Commercial wants the tax to continue because the Hospital management said they need the money.
I need the money also. I want to open a Dairy Queen to improve local health by providing subsidized ice cream using healthy milk to low income people. But, I want the same wording in my agreement - no specific requirements on how the funds are to be spent, so I can spend it on relatives, transfer funds to other operations or pay myself a REALLY BIG deferred compensation payment (like a pension).
Kudos however to the Daily Commercial for actually printing Marilyn's response.
Original Editorial from Daily Commercial, Sept 23
Below is Marilyn's Response
Hospital tax will hurt businesses
Hospital tax will hurt businesses- by Marilyn Bainter - Sept 23 - Get it Here or read it below
In reference to your editorial (in Wednesday's edition), you mentioned the North Lake County Hospital District took a healthy step in the right direction.
Maybe a healthy step toward the bottom line of two very financially healthy hospitals, but not a healthy step for the taxpayers and the economy of Lake County. The two nonprofit hospitals together made $28.4 million in profit in 2007 (the latest available reports for both hospitals).
How much profit do you think a nonprofit hospital should make?
Years ago our nonprofit hospitals made a deal with our government to provide charity care for total tax exemptions to include no federal income tax, no state corporate tax, no local ad valorem tax or sales tax and have access to charitable donations that are tax deductible to the donor and tax-exempt bond financing. These are all exemptions that we in the community have to make up for with our taxes.
A recent study done by the Government Accountability Office for the Finance Committee of the United States Senate states, "Among the government standards and industry guidance used by nonprofit hospitals, consensus exists to define many activities and their associated expenses-charity care, the unreimbursed cost of means-tested government programs, and many other activities that benefit the community-as community benefit. However, consensus does not exist to define bad debt and the unreimbursed cost of Medicare as community benefit".
The latest numbers provided by Agency for Health Care Administration shows the amount of chari percent for Leesburg and 3.09 percent for Florida Hospital Waterman. The magic number for disproportionate share funding for Medicaid is 11 percent.
While you say the owner of a $150,000 home may pay only $100, that could be spent locally with one of our small businesses to keep them in business another day. Or that $100 may help that homeowner pay the mortgage that month. The $100 that a small business would save may keep them from laying off another employee for a day or two longer. We do not need to be subsidizing rich corporations while letting our small businesses that pay taxes in Lake County fail.
There are only 10 counties left in the state that have an ad valorem tax to support hospitals. In their legislation there are definite purposes which our legislation does not have. While this tax was necessary, when Lake County was small and rural in order for us to have a hospital and care for the indigent in the days past before Medicaid and Medicare, we are now living in different times.
The majority of the crowd that gathered at the tax hearing in favor of the tax had some kind of financial interest, either directly or indirectly. There was a carnival atmosphere down to the refreshments being passed out. Appeasement of special interests is hardly a basis for public decision that affect all of North Lake County taxpayers.
The members of the North Lake County Hospital District cannot make unbiased decisions without investigating all the data. Serving on both the taxing board and hospital board, which has happened, also would seem to have some bearing on their decisions. In some states certain associations with institutions that receive public money is grounds for prosecution.
Marilyn Bainter
Trustee, North Lake County Hospital District
The basis for this letter includes the 990 forms for the hospitals, their audited financial statements, and the United State Government Accountability Office (GAO-08-880 Nonprofit Hospitals).
