how will you vote on the 5 cent increase for the medical school?

[BevoLJ]

Austin's Hospitol District rate is currently .0789 right? And this would bump it to .129?

What are the other cities in Texas?

I tried to find some articles on Google and here is what I think I found. Not totally sure how accurate these are so please correct me if I am wrong. They seem crazy high, or maybe it is just that Austin is crazy low?

Austin = 7.89 cents
Dallas = 27.1 cents (way over 3 times as much as Austin's)
Houston = 19.2160 cents
San Antonio = 27.6235 cents (could this possibly be right? It is 3 and a half times Austin's!)
Fort Worth = 22.7897 cents
El Paso = 18.1185 cents

A 5 cent bump and we would still have by FAR the lowest taxes in the state.

As for the Texas A&M school... lol. Was done in typical aggy fashion.

Perry/aggy: "I have an idea! Lets take Leslie's old reused refrigerator box and stick it in the middle of a cow pasture in BFE. Hay look at our new med-school! WHOOP! WHOOP! SEC!SEC!SEC!"

Completely ignore the community and the low-income who need it most. It does nothing for Austin. Zero, zilch, nada for any of us. Here is a map of where it's website says it is...



Ya, thanks for that! lol. Anyway, that isn't the same sort of school planned for Austin. What would be planned for Austin is a large major med school with the hospital, research and all that. I don't know how the aggy one works, but do they do the entire education there? Or is it just for a small portion of their education? Like the last two years? Is there even a hospital at the school? How much research is done there? And why in the world did they build it way the hell out in the middle of nowhere where no one can use it?

The main things I'd like to know about the aggy school are how many students it has, how many beds it has, and how much in research they do annually?

[orngkat]

If it's medicine as usual, why bother?

[Tralfaz]

I like the rate for Bastrop' hospital district better.

[scm53]

OK, think I have said it before. My wife has an entire career in hospital administration, and has been a CEO before. We talk ALOT about this. All opinions here are my own.

1. Medical students do not treat patients. Repeat, medical students do not treat patients. They may round in their third and fourth years, but only with a resident or attending physician. They ARE NOT licensed to treat patients. Presence of a medical school does not increase the number of providers in a community.

2. Residents treat patients. Residency programs do not have to be co-located with a med school. Today, there are around 200 residents in Austin. Statewide, the are not enough residency slots for the graduates of the nine Texas med schools. There is almost ZERO correlation between where someone attends med school and where they practice. Med school graduates are matched nationally through a process to a residency program. There is an 80% correlation nationwide between the state where you do your residency and where you practice.

3. Central Texas, as a region, has the highest ratio of primary care physicians per 100K residents of any region in the state. If the goal is to use a medical school to increase the number of providers, every region of the state can make a case before Central Texas. I.e., the Valley.

The best solution is to not build a medical school in Austin, but rather to expand the number or residency slots, especially in the primary care specialities. Since faculty is needed to supervise the residents, you can either do that as a branch (the current Austin residency programs are extensions of UT Southwestern and UT SA Med School) or by setting up a residency only program such as UTHSC Tyler. There are Texas med school grads that have to go out of state for residency, so there is plenty of supply. Those residents will be the lower cost providers that Central Health needs.

If your goal is to provide medical care for the medically indigent (which is the only constitutionally permitted mission for a hospital district, per Article 9 of the Texas Constitution), then you can accomplish that by expanding the Austin residency programs. If your goal is to build a monument to egos and vanity, ... It's only a nickel.

[twange]

scm53 - thanks for that detailed reply. It will help contribute to me making an informed decision.

[gpurcell]

This isn't about medical care. This is about research. A medical school connected to UT will be able to help drive a ton of biotech dollars here.

I'm voting in favor; at least I'll get something out of all the dollars wasted on Central Health.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

This isn't about medical care. This is about research. A medical school connected to UT will be able to help drive a ton of biotech dollars here.

Great goal. Research dollars are a good thing. And there is absolutely nothing preventing UT from starting a medical research institute tomorrow. There are plenty of research institutes in the US not connected to a medical school - Huntington and Sanford-Burnham in California do cutting edge work. There are research institutes connected to major hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic and Scott-White, again not part of a medical school.

None of those successful medical research institutes draw a dollar of local property tax funding - they exist on grant money and the licensing fees from the intellectual property they create. Again, medical research is a good goal - only problem is, it isn't a constitutionally permitted function of a Texas hospital district such as Central Health.