In an interview on Tuesday, Demapan said he agrees that if the transition is delayed for another year, the fiscal year 2012 budget won’t be balanced.
“What will happen is the administration would have to submit a new budget proposal that would include funding for the Department of Public Health and CHC,” he said.
Extending the deadline for another year, he added, will “forcibly change the dynamics of the FY 2012 budget.”
He said the governor’s budget submission last April proposed to give CHC $5 million in seed money to get the new healthcare corporation running this Oct. 1.
The administration wants the CNMI’s only hospital, he added, to become self-sustaining.
The administration is hoping that through collections, the healthcare corporation, would reach the point of self-sustainability before the $5 million seed money is exhausted, Demapan said.
Other than the start-up money, Demapan said the administration at this point is not proposing to appropriate anything else for the hospital.
Hospital management should intensify collection efforts in order to fill CHC’s coffers, he added.
In previous years, hospital collections went to the general fund and could be appropriated for other government services.
Once CHC becomes a public corporation, “every dollar that will be collected will stay with them,” Demapan said.
What the administration is requesting the Legislature to do now is amend the provisions of Public Law 16-51, or the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation Act, regarding the qualifications of the members of the board of trustees.
P.L. 16-51 provides that the board will be composed of seven members, three of them ex-officio voting members.
Of these ex-officio members, one will be the chief executive director, the second will be the director of medical affairs, and the third, a U.S. citizen or permanent resident representative to be selected by the corporation’s non-physician healthcare professionals.
The four other members will be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The law provides that each member must have at least a bachelor’s degree from an accredited U.S. postsecondary institution and five years of management and supervisory experience in the private sector, including nonprofit corporations.
A few months ago, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial hired former Gov. Juan N. Babauta as health consultant for $1.
Babauta, Variety learned, is now helping the administration identify concerns regarding President Obama’s healthcare reform law.
Asked if the administration wants the healthcare trustees’ qualifications to be reduced, Demapan said, “Yes to some degree.”
The qualifications are stringent and very difficult to meet, he added.
“So we asked for the Legislature to amend it to allow the governor to immediately or timely appoint members to the board,” he said, adding that there are potential appointees whose papers are now being reviewed by the governor.
But then again, he said, “it is dependent on getting the law amended.”
“Try to make it more realistic,” Demapan said, referring to the qualifications of the healthcare board members.
