MetroHealth hosts healthcare-focused County Executive candidate forum | Events

With the Sept. 7 primary election just a month away, MetroHealth will host the first County Executive forum to focus on the topic of health care from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Aug. 10 at 2500 MetroHealth Drive.

Candidates Terri Hamilton Brown, Matt Dolan, Mayor Edward FitzGerald, Ken Lanci, Tim McCormack, and Don Scipione have accepted an invitation from MetroHealth executives to attend the public forum.  They will be given the opportunity to express their views on how to address the unprecedented challenges facing the county and the county’s largest safety net medical provider, The MetroHealth System – including unemployment, population shifts, disparities in health care and health care reform.

Following a brief introductory statement from each candidate, the candidates will take questions from the audience – made up of MetroHealth staff, volunteers, and visitors. 

As a county-supported hospital system, MetroHealth – its 6,100 employees and thousands of patients – has a personal stake in the outcome of the transition to a new county government.  MetroHealth receives 6 percent of its budget or $40 million annually from Cuyahoga County taxpayers, through the health and human services levies.  The funding helped to cover costs associated with nearly 175,000 uninsured patient visits throughout the county in 2009. That volume has grown more than 7 percent in the last two years, largely from suburban patients.