PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 In one month, early voting for the 2025 election will begin, and voters in Maricopa County will have to answer a nearly $900 million question.<\/p>\n
In April, the Maricopa County Special Health Care District Board of Directors<\/a> voted unanimously to put a $898 million bond question, known as Prop 409, to the voters that would help Valleywise Health<\/a>, the county\u2019s public hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are at capacity in a lot of these areas. We\u2019re able to care for people, just not as timely as we would like,\u201d explained Valleywise Health chief clinical officer Dr. Michael White<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2014, 63% of voters<\/a> in Maricopa County approved a $935 million bond for Valleywise Health, which was used to build and open the new medical center<\/a> last year. This time, Dr. White says the money would be used to build a new 200-bed behavioral health hospital, build a new outpatient specialty center on the main campus, expand pediatric and primary care, enhance physician training, and expand observation beds at the medical center.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say is that we do have concerns that there are health care disparities, particularly for the uninsured and underserved populations. And also, we\u2019re concerned about the physician shortage in the long term,\u201d said Dr. Adnan Saithna.<\/p>\n Dr. Saithna is the president-elect of the Maricopa County Medical Society<\/a> and says many of the more than 8,000 health care professionals that are part of the organization are in support of Prop 409.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it really boils down to is that this proposition is to support this essential resource to the community, for the health of the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The bond would add 11 cents per $100 of net assessed limited property value in Maricopa County. To calculate what that would mean for you, property values can be checked here<\/a> and you can use this bond calculator<\/a> to see how much your taxes would go up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy should it be the taxpayers of Maricopa County that are funding this? Are there any other sources of funding you guys could look at?\u201d asked Arizona\u2019s Family reporter Zach Prelutsky.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are those, you know, places that people tend to come to, you know, when they have that time of need. We do not turn anyone away that needs to have care in their time of need. So making this investment allows our community to be healthy,\u201d says Dr. White. \u201cAs a special health care district of the state, it is one of those methodologies that we have to be able to go out for these propositions to help us fund this.\u201d<\/p>\n If Prop. 409<\/a> does not pass, Dr. White says none of the expansion projects that are outlined above would happen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to see the number of, you know, time to wait in the emergency department continue to increase. We\u2019ll likely continue to see people who need behavioral health services have to wait a longer period of time before they\u2019re able to receive those,\u201d said Dr. White.<\/p>\n Maricopa County Elections will be doing all-mail elections for the upcoming November election<\/a>. Ballots will be mailed on Oct. 8, and that is the day that early voting begins as well. The last day to mail back your ballot is Oct. 28, ahead of election day on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n