News
Georgia budget calls for hospital bed tax
2/4/2010
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Urvaksh Karkaria Staff Writer
Friday, Jan. 15, 2010
Georgia hopes to collect more than $500 million from health-care industry providers in fiscal 2011.
Under Gov. Sonny Perdue’s budget proposal, hospital providers would pay the giant share -- about $247.8 million -- via a “bed tax.”
Nursing home providers could end up paying $131.3 million in fees, while health insurers could have to shell out an additional $97 million.
The hospital bed tax would be levied via legislation, introduced and shelved last year, that calls for a 1.6 percent fee to be levied on hospitals’ adjusted gross patient revenue.
The Medicaid bed tax proposal would allow the state to draw more federal matching dollars, which could be funneled back to Georgia health-care providers.
Georgia Medicaid will need up to $635 million in fiscal 2011, according to a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Community Health.
The hospital industry, not surprisingly, is balking at the additional fees.
The proposed bed tax could lop about $15 million off Piedmont Healthcare’s bottom line annually. Saint Joseph’s Health System, meanwhile, would take a nearly $6 million hit to its bottom line annually.
The hospitals warn that any new tax would eventually get passed onto patients and employers. It would also hurt their ability to invest in expansions and improvements and could lead to further layoffs. Some hospitals, skating on financial thin ice, could go under.
