Opinion ID: 853052
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What is the HCI Program?

Text: We recently had occasion to analyze the structure and operation of the HCI program in State Bd. of Tax Comm'rs v. Montgomery, 730 N.E.2d 680, 681 (Ind. 2000). Before 1986, each of Indiana's counties bore all responsibility for indigent health care. Id. The legislature enacted the HCI provisions in 1986 and then recodified them in 1992 at Ind.Code §§ 12-16-2-1 to XX-XX-XX-X. Id. The general purpose was to provide cost-free emergency medical care to indigent patients who did not qualify for Medicaid. Id. The HCI program transferred the administration of indigent health care to the State and imposed an HCI tax levy to finance it. Id. Under the present arrangement, the Department must review each county's property tax levy under this chapter and ... enforce the requirements of this chapter with respect to that levy. Id. (citing Ind.Code § 12-16-14-4 (1998)). Each county annually imposes the levy as a property tax for that county and collects it like other state and county ad valorem property taxes. Ind.Code § 12-16-14-2 (1998). Unlike the general property tax levy, [2] the Indiana Code prescribes the amount of the HCI levy for each county; it is the previous year's levy increased by the percentage of growth in assessed value of all property in the state. Montgomery, 730 N.E.2d at 681 [3] . Certain statutory limits on property tax rates may be exceeded [t]o meet the requirements of the county hospital care for the indigent fund. Id. (citing Ind.Code § 6-1.1-18-3(7) (1998)). The act establishes an HCI fund in each county. Montgomery, 730 N.E.2d at 681. The balance of each county's HCI fund is transferred to the state HCI fund. Id. The State administers the HCI program and reimburses providers of emergency medical care to the indigent for their expenses from the state HCI fund. Griffin, 765 N.E.2d at 720-21 (citing Ind.Code § 12-16-14-8 (1998)). In 1993, the legislature modified the HCI program to secure additional federal Medicaid funds by using $35 million of the state HCI fund as matching money. Id. at 721. The initial HCI levy for each county had been set at the average of its indigent hospital care expenditures over 1984-86, with certain adjustments. Montgomery, 730 N.E.2d at 681. The HCI tax rate thus varies from county to county because of the difference in the counties' historical expenditures on hospital services for the indigent during the years immediately before the HCI program was enacted.