BOCC Kicks Indigent Healthcare Can Down the Road

BRADENTON — At Tuesday's Manatee County Commission meeting, members of the county's health care community agreed to piece-meal the next year of health care costs for the uninsured and under-insured residents of Manatee County through a matching state and federal fund program.

In October 2004, the Manatee County Commission approved county participation in a matching dollars program with the State of Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Participation in this program allows for additional funding to come into Manatee County for expansion of health care services for Medicaid, uninsured and under-insured residents, and allows Manatee County Health Care Providers to draw down state and federal dollars through the IGT/LIP programs.

On September 9, Manatee County Commissioners requested that funding be budgeted through IGT/LIP for the period July 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015.

The Adoption of Resolution R-14-145, presented to the commission Tuesday, will authorize Manatee County Administrator Ed Hunzeker to execute an agreement with Manatee Memorial Hospital for $4,700,000 and Blake Medical Center for $670,000.

$794,170 is recommended to be allocated to fund Manatee County Rural Health and $1,000,000 is recommended to be allocated for Physician Payments.

The county chose to allow, with resident qualification, those at 200 percent the poverty level to be eligible to receive assistance. Commissioners first thought that raising the bar to 135 percent the poverty level would relieve some of the burden from the quickly-exhausting corpus, therefore extending the funding source's life. It was later decided that it wouldn't alleviate enough of the problem on the providers' end. 

This resolve may have begun to map a method by which the county can build on, but by no account cures the permanent dilemma of how to pay for indigent care. A proposed half-cent sales tax referendum failed by almost 2-1 in 2013.