A Palm Beach Story - Untold
St. Mary's Good Samaritan
It’s been a bit more than a decade since a gaggle of nuns joined a pride of Palm Beach powerbrokers in a righteous crusade to close St. Mary’s Medical Center – the county’s historic health care epicenter for low income residents.
The 460 bed hospital, the bizarre Palm Beach alliance claimed, was financially terminal and hemorrhaging huge losses due to its overwhelming load of charity patients.
The solution proposed by the nuns and powerbrokers?
Merge St. Mary’s with its fiscally ailing sister hospital Good Samaritan – and sell off the giant Catholic hospital’s facilities and 100 acres.
However…
Thanks to the intervention of then Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, St. Mary’s and Good Samaritan remained open.
So now…
Palm Beach Hospital Trends
Surplus and/or (Loss)
2000 2010
Good Samaritan ($29,189,348) $2,169,366
St Mary’s ($42,745,000) $12,609,946
Tax Exempt After Taxes
Total ($71,934,348) $14,779,312
Bethesda $9,566,037 $15,721,1555
Boca Raton ($30,354,070) $6,192,814
Columbia ($1,562,622) ($6,311,740)
Delray $20,513,359 $13,386,914
Glades/Lakeside ($2,024,255) ($3,661,940)
JFK $2,133,385 $3,253,179
Jupiter $1,423,338 $8,577,343
Plam Bch Gardens $14,559,160 $4,191,123
Palms West $9,852,345 $14,821,755
Wellington $328,939 ($13,397,078)
NOTE: Frank Nask, the North Broward Hospital District’s current CEO, was CFO at Good Samaritan and St. Mary’s when the two hospitals were plunged into a near-terminal financial crisis.
A New Year's Wish
People, places and things I'd
like to read, see and hear less
about in the coming New Year.
Fox News…Gays…Issues de Jour…Israel…Mega
Millionaire Athletes…Minorities…Obesity…Other's
Rights…Patriotism…Reality TV…Religiosity…
Saviors de Jour…Self Image…The Newest Big
Thing…The Stinking Rich…Victims de Jour…
PLEASE!
The Tooth Fairy & Heart Failure
NOTE:
Few adults still believe in the tooth fairy.
But most Americans still believe health care costs are “consumer driven.”
Fla. Trauma Hospitals
Levels I and II
MS-DRG 291-292-293
Heart Failure & Shock
(Medicare Patients)
Average Per Day
Charge Cost
Alachua
Shands U of F $4,377 $1,600
Brevard
Holms Regional $4,682 $1,604
Broward
Broward General $5,786 $1,753
Memorial Regional $7,495 $1,633
North Broward $5,122 $1,740
Duval
Shands Jacksonville $5,392 $1,398
Escambia
Baptist Hospital $4,478 $1,241
Sacred Heart $3,625 $1,269
Hillsborough
St. Joseph’s $5,197 $1,366
Tampa General $7,331 $1,756
Lee
Lee Memorial $4,708 $1,211
Leon
Tallahassee Memorial $5,173 $1,456
Miami-Dade
Jackson $6,786 $2,099
Kendall Regional $9,041 $1,721
Orange
Orlando Regional $6,315 $1,476
Palm Beach
Delray Medical $7,611 $1,547
Saint Mary’s $8,658 $1,783
Pinellas
Bayfront Medical $6,473 $1,488
Polk
Lakeland Regional $5,024 $1,338
St. Lucie
Lawnwood Regional $8,657 $1,072
Volusia
Halifax Medical $4,415 $1,468
SOURCE: www.ahd.com
As 2011 comes to an end...
Irrefutable proof the average
American is reality challenged
Spoilers on passenger cars
TV sitcom laugh tracks
America’s Healthcare System
Stayed Tuned in 2012
Can you spell dystopian?
Time now for a nasty lump of coal in
South Florida’s Christmas stocking
"Our Youth - Our Future"
Can you spell dystopian?
BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Students 2000-01 2010-11 Increase
Total Students 251,116 256,477 2%
Low Income* 91,676 139,765 52%
Total White Students 101,403 65,509 (35%)
Low Income * 14,917 18,156 22%
Total African American 90,358 101,064 12%
Low Income* 53,160 79,902 50%
Total Hispanic/Latino 48,123 74,019 54%
Low Income * 20,503 39,739 94%
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Students 2000-01 2010-11 Increase
Total Students 363,393 350,227 (4%)
Low Income 217,594 243,751 12%
Total White Students 41,276 29,092 (30%)
Low Income 9,503 9,508 0%
Total African American 114,143 83,857 (27%)
Low Income 80,331 70,061 (13%)
Total Hispanic/Latino 205,710 230,860 12%
Low Income 125,273 161,209 29%
PALM BEACH COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Students 2000-01 2010-11 Increase
Total Students 153,800 178,901 16%
Low Income 59,466 89,132 50%
Total White Students 74,192 64,445 (13%)
Low Income 10,628 13,589 28%
Total African American 45,475 50,792 12%
Low Income 30,907 38,592 25%
Total Hispanic/Latino 26,698 51,308 92%
Low Income 15,590 32,284 108%
FLORIDA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Students 2000-01 2010-11 Increase
Total Students 2,431,521 2,667,830 10%
Low Income 1,068,609 1,480,735 39%
Total White Students 1,277,521 1,131,718 (11%)
Low Income 333,391 414,672 24%
Total African American 603,493 612,392 1%
Low Income 414,953 470,229 13%
Total Hispanic/Latino 464,897 762,781 64%
Low Income 288,236 522,120 81%
*Eligible for free or reduced price school lunch
SOURCE: Florida Department of Education
Take it the Bank (or Lobbyist)
Re: The Commission on Review of
Taxpayer Funded Hospital Districts
The sweeping changes proposed for Tax-Funded
Healthcare will soon separate all the Whores,
Pimps and Johns in Florida’s House and Senate.
That said...
Our hearts go out to the dedicated souls
at the state's Agency for Health Care
Administration for the beating they'll
take from the likes of the Florida Hospital
Association and a host of other hired guns.
After all these years....
An Early Christmas for this Blogster
Stay tuned. John deGroot
Dozens of public hospitals in Florida are facing a host of radical proposals ranging from their sale to private corporations, to an end to their exclusive use of locally generated tax dollars – this based on a draft of recommendations from the Commission on Review of Taxpayer funded Hospital Districts.
Created by Florida Gov. Rick Scott nearly a year ago, the just released draft of the Commission’s final report calls for an end to Broward’s two tax-funded Hospital District’s which rank among the nation’s ten largest public healthcare systems.
Here in Broward, the draft for the Commission’s final report due next month, recommends the North Broward Hospital District (dba as Broward Health) and the South Broward Hospital District (dba as Memorial Healthcare) be:
(1) Replaced by a single Healthcare Tax District which will reimburse the cost of Indigent patient care at a hospital of their of the choice.
(2) The nine public hospitals owned by the two Broward healthcare districts will be “de-coupled” and sold to private health care entities which may be either for profit or 501c3 corporations.
(3) The politically-appointed seven member commissions charged with running the two districts will be replaced by a single county-wide health care district board charged with funding indigent care via an money-following-the-patient basis in the manner of a local HM0.
The Commission’s proposals deal squarely with issues this author has championed for more than a decade as a tax-paying resident of the North Broward Hospital District – namely that the District continues to use millions of local tax-dollars to engage in unfair competition with the private hospitals in its market area by:
This Just In.....
A Giant Turd
Santa’s Gift to Broward’s Two
Tax Funded Hospital Districts
Stay Tuned
If then was now...
HMO or PPO?
"I'll Need Your Insurance Card"
When a Metaphor Is Enough
Time Marches On
And On....
And On....
And On....
And On....
And On....