North Memorial Health Leaders Make Pitch for Sales Tax Inclusion

There’s about a month left to the legislative session. It’s precious time ticking away as local hospitals seek help to solve a funding crisis.

At the April 9 House Tax Committee, North Memorial Health CEO Trevor Sawallish said that financial challenges are expected “to intensify” over the next several years.

“Over the last several years, the costs continue to outpace any revenue gains that we have,” said Sawallish. “These include rising pharmaceutical costs, labor costs, medical supplies, equipment, health insurance, our own health insurance, and compliance requirements – all of which have far outstripped the pace of any reimbursement, especially when which 75 percent of the patients that walk through our door are on government programs.”

Sawallish said North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale lost $50 million last year, largely due to uncompensated care.

A bill under consideration, HF 4841, would extend and increase the sales tax that pays for Target Field from 0.15 percent to 1 percent.

A brunt of the revenue raised would support Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) in downtown Minneapolis. At 1 percent, $337 million would have been generated last year. North Memorial Health Hospital would have received up to $24 million from revenue raised based on a formula involving the amount of uncompensated care.

Perspective on Patients

Both HCMC and North Memorial are Level 1 trauma centers, which provide 24/7 critical care. A North Memorial Health trauma surgeon said the Robbinsdale hospital took care of 15,000 patients over the last five years for a wide range of serious injuries.

“It’s true of the 15,000 patients that we took care of in the last five years that were admitted for trauma, a lot of them were the ones you think about, the gunshot wounds, over 1,600 were gunshot wounds, a couple hundred stabbings, but 89 percent are not that,” explained Dr. Jon Gibson. “They’re average Minnesotans that hail from your communities. There are falls from standing, there are falls off ladders, falls off roofs, car crashes, bike crashes.”

Dr. Jon Gibson, trauma surgeon at North Memorial Health Hospital

Gibson said one-third of trauma patients come from outside Hennepin County, particularly rural hospitals, which aren’t set up to provide complex acute care.

The sales tax proposal has some bipartisan support. Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers, are sponsors.

“Losing any hospital would put our health care system under incredible pressure,” said Nadeau during the meeting. “Closing HCMC would be a disaster to the state’s entire health care system.”

The House Taxes Committee laid the bill over for possible omnibus bill inclusion with more committee hearings expected.

Also see: Federal Budget Bill Could ‘Devastate’ North Memorial Health Hospital

Robbinsdale