The Tax Levy Review Committee will recommend to Hamilton County commissioners on Monday that an increase for a special tax to pay for health care for poor people be placed on the May ballot.

        The tax would be a 35 percent increase.

        Backers of the tax are asking for an increase from $43 million to $50 million per year. Of the total collected, $7 million would pay for other medical needs such as inmate health care at the jail and TB control.

        There was no increase in the tax the last time it passed, in 1997.

        The tax would generate more than $291 million over five years and cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $65 per year. The tax now costs a homeowner about $50 a year.

        The levy's primary purpose is to pay for indigent health care at University and Children's hospitals.

        Al Tuchfarber, director of the University of Cincinnati Institute for Health Policy and Health Services Research, has said the tax needs to go on the May ballot so that it can be placed on the November ballot if it fails.

        Mr. Tuchfarber said the levy serves about 40,000 people per year. Levy proponents are asking for an in crease because the cost of health care has increased.

        The current 4.73-mill levy costs the owner of a $100,000 home $50.75 per year. To generate the $50 million per year, the levy would have to be raised about a half-mill.

        Although the levy review committee recommended the tax to commissioners, the group will continue researching two specific questions:

        • Should other hospitals get a share of the tax proceeds?

        • What should the reimbursement rate be for each patient the hospital serves? Currently, it is the rate paid by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people.

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