New public hospital model eliminates borrowing

Gov. Bobby Jindal is backing a new construction plan for a New Orleans public hospital that wouldn’t require state-backed borrowing but would remain larger in scope than an alternative model pushed by U.S. Sen. David Vitter. The $1.1 billion proposal, to be presented to the University Medical Center governing board Thursday, assumes $156 million more in federal hurricane recovery funding than the state currently has in hand and would require an LSU foundation to finance $157 million of the cost. Without the borrowing, the state’s annual support for the hospital would drop to around its current spending level. The opening of the proposed 424-bed hospital is estimated to be 2015. It wouldn’t involve buying existing hospitals, as Vitter has proposed. Jindal called the proposal devised by Verite Healthcare Consulting a “strong business plan.”