The deal hinges on a guarantee that hospitals will get more money for the care they provide.
It calls for payments for charity and uncompensated care to be no less 75 percent of costs at rural, so-called critical access hospitals, and be as much as 50 percent at other hospitals. New London Republican Bob Odell helped broker the deal.
"This is not a perfect solution, but I think this takes us out of the courtroom for a while, and I think the fact that we have a tax decrease in this, however modest, is very important. So I think we made some progress."
Under the agreement the 5.5 percent tax on hospitals net patient revenues would drop to as low as 5.2 percent over the 4 years.
Every hospital in the state is backing the deal save for St. Joseph in Nashua.
The changes little effect on state current state budget but create a projected shortfall of about 100 million dollars in the next biennium. Before the changes take effect, they must win approval by the full legislature.
