Editorial: Indigent care study is overdue

Thursday, April 5, 2001 | 9:36 a.m.

The Clark County Commission is considering changing the way it reimburses hospitals that provide indigent care, a reassessment that is warranted since the funding criteria hasn't changed since it was first adopted in 1993. As the Sun's Adrienne Packer reported Wednesday, a new study by an independent auditor, Deloitte & Touche, suggested the county create a new funding formula that is more equitable for the hospitals.

As it works now, hospitals only are eligible for county funding if 20 percent of their in-patients are either uninsured or have low incomes. The study released this week found, not unexpectedly, that the county-run University Medical Center's amount of indigent residents was almost 75 percent. In a mild surprise, the for-profit Lake Mead Hospital's indigent-care rate was 36 percent. Sunrise Hospital's in-patient rate of indigents was at 17 percent.

Even for-profit hospitals shouldn't shrug their responsibility of taking care of anyone who comes through their doors. But at the same time, if private hospitals are taking on significantly more indigent patients, then the government should adequately compensate them. Still, the county should ensure that these hospitals indeed are hurting and merit county payments beyond what the federal government now provides. For that matter, it shouldn't be forgotten that one of the culprits in this issue is employers who don't have the decency to offer health insurance to their workers. The refusal by these companies to provide health care means that ultimately taxpayers will have to dig into their pockets to do what's right.