Ortego proposes taxing districts to keep public hospitals solvent

Rep. Stephen Ortego, D-Carencro, says Louisiana doesn’t need to work on tax overhaul, but instead focus on more pressing concerns, such as the dismantling of public hospitals. “It’s become a dangerous distraction, more than anything,” says Ortego, guest speaker of today’s Baton Rouge Press Club luncheon. Ortego notes that LED Secretary Stephen Moret wrote less than a year ago in the Louisiana Economic Quarterly that the Tax Foundation recently ranked Louisiana’s state-and-local tax burden as the second-lowest in the United States for new firms, and 10th-lowest for mature firms. “But now it’s become a problem,” Ortego says sarcastically of the state’s need to do away with corporate income taxes to become even more business friendly. Ortego says he’s working with fellow lawmakers on new legislation that would help keep charity hospitals solvent and allow LSU to further train doctors and nurses—as it always has—rather than worry about cuts and the implosion of a decades-old system. It’s not that Ortego is against the idea of private businesses running public hospitals—as the Jindal administration has been pushing—but “I haven’t seen that lease agreement work in any other state.” Of the nine Human Services Districts in the state, Ortego proposes giving them the ability to tax for funds within their own district and at the same time empower their local communities. “If it was voted on by the people, you can’t swipe that money away,” Ortego says. —Adam Pearson