Sarasota County Public Hospital Board, at-large Seat 2: Kevin Cooper

Age: 42

Current occupation: Vice President, Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium

Resident of Sarasota County: 16 years

Why are you running for election?

As a combat veteran, I’ve been called to community service since I joined the Army at the age of 18. The hospital board is an extension of that — a role in which I can serve the community in a way that I’m passionate about and can add value.

There are a just handful of necessary conditions for community success; a high-functioning healthcare system is one of those, and I have the experience necessary to continue to ensure that all Sarasotans can count on the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System for some of the highest quality healthcare outcomes in the United States.

Have you ever run for public office before? If so, for what office?

I have not.

What experience and/or special skills do you have that make you a better candidate than your opponents?

First, none of my opponents has the in-depth experience with, and knowledge of, the community at-large and healthcare needs present in Sarasota County.

I have served as the head of both the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce and the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, where I successfully advocated for the designation of Sarasota Memorial Hospital as a Level II Trauma Center.

In those roles, I worked with the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System on numerous initiatives and connected with the business and residential communities on the needs and gaps in our local healthcare.

Second, none of my opponents has the nonprofit board and administrative oversight experience that I’ve developed over more than a decade of service to Sarasota County. I have a collective 21-years of service on Sarasota County advisory boards and have served on numerous, local, non-profit boards, including, but not limited to, the following: Forty Carrots Family Center, Sarasota Tiger Bay Club, Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance and the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness.

In addition, I’ve served in other roles as a member of the State College of Florida Strategic Plan Steering Committee, Bayfront 20:20 Steering Committee and Sarasota County Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. Healthcare is a community concern and none of my opponents is as qualified to represent the community as I am.

What do you see as the top three or four priorities that the hospital board needs to address? And how should those priorities be addressed?

My top priority is ensuring equitable countywide access to our community hospital. That starts with ensuring the successful construction of a hospital campus on our 32-acre site on Sumter Boulevard in south county and continues with our expansion of free-standing emergency rooms, as well as our healthcare and urgent care centers.

Another priority is to continue our ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest medical minds. We address that by ensuring a strong culture that encourages innovation while compensating our employees appropriately.

We don’t do that by telling our medical professionals how to practice medicine, as one of my opponents wants to do. 

Finally, we need to accomplish these things in a fiscally responsible manner. The hospital board simply cannot allow for the growth of our system to equate to a growth in taxes. We’re blessed to operate as a non-profit that answers to the community and not to shareholders or private equity, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to be prudent. The board has a limited taxing authority, and we should limit it accordingly.

On a scale of A to F, with A being excellent, what grade would you give the performance of the current SMH executive team? Why, and what if anything should change in the way SMH leadership operates the SMH system?

Having not been in a position to formally evaluate the performance of the SMH executive team, as I will as a member of the board, as a taxpayer and community leader I would grade the team with an “A.” 

In the nearly two-decades I’ve been in Sarasota, SMH has undergone transformative growth that has seen numerous much-needed service and geographic expansion in Sarasota County. Coupled with the accolades bestowed upon SMH by many third-party review agencies, my own experience of a father of two who were both born at SMH would inform me of success that begins at the highest levels of the organization and a culture that is passed down and owned by every single employee and contractor.

The hospital’s property-tax millage rate has been 1.042 mills. In 2023, that generated $81.9 million in property-tax revenue, accounting for 58% of the hospital system’s surplus over its expenses. What is your position on the hospital’s millage rate — should it remain 1.042 mills; should it be reduced or increased? Why?

Having community support, as a non-profit enterprise, is central to how SMH has been able to serve the community as well as it has. It’s not just the money, which contributes around 4%-6% of total operating revenues in a given year, it’s the lens that it allows the hospital to apply to the provision of necessary, but unprofitable services.

For example, it’s documented that obstetrics and delivery services are one of the leading money losers of all hospital services. But, is that what we want, with SMH being the only hospital with labor and delivery services in Sarasota County — a for-profit hospital without community financial support that may lead to no babies being delivered in Sarasota County?

In addition, SMH provides tens of millions of dollars each year in charity and indigent care. Do we want those people who received that care dying in our yards or on the streets because they’re being turned away, which may now be the case in a neighboring community as a hospital there has ended indigent care?

The hospital should work to lower the millage rate to the greatest extent possible, but not at the expense of losing the ability to view critical services for our citizens as a benefit and not a cost. I want my babies to have their babies at SMH, just like I was able to.

A faction of Sarasota County citizens contends the hospital should be sold and privatized. What is your position on this and why?

This idea should be rejected by all citizens of Sarasota County. We have a private hospital in Sarasota County. The benefit of having Sarasota Memorial Hospital is that it operates differently than its for-profit counterpart.

I’m a firm believer in King Solomon’s assertion that “iron sharpens iron.” Sarasota Memorial Hospital can apply a different lens as a non-profit, community hospital, but it cannot rest on its laurels and siphon off the community coffers. It has competition.

In addition, privatization of the hospital could and would very likely lead to longer wait times, doctors and nurses leaving in droves and, as mentioned previously, the elimination of unprofitable, but popular and critically needed services.

Do you agree or disagree with the board’s decision as outlined below — why?

(Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, the hospital board recently rejected a motion from Board Member Victor Rohe to add on the SMH website, among other points, the following: “to fully inform the public of the lack of pre-authorization safety data, the evidence of probable risks of these injections and of [Florida Surgeon General] Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s recent call to immediately halt the use of these COVID-19 mRNA injections. … Further, all staff and employees should be instructed, when they interact with patients or other members of the community who make inquiries about the COVID-19 vaccine, to refer those patients or community members to the information available on the SMH website concerning the risks and lack of safety data, rather than simply referring those individuals to local pharmacies that continue to dispense these potentially dangerous injections.”

Instead the board unanimously voted to support the following: “That the Board will continue to respect and honor every patient’s right to make [his/her] own health care decision within the patient-physician relationship, and using all resources available to them to inform the discussions surrounding those decisions … [T]he Board will continue to endeavor not to invade the physician-patient relationship or mandate treatment regimens for patients to its physicians.”)

While I support the board’s position, it’s hard to make sense of the need for a statement that confirms something that’s always been the case.

Simply put, the board has not and should not, under any circumstances, invade the physician-patient relationship. Full stop.

SMH literally has a process for discharge of patients as they decide and “against medical advice.” If that’s not a patient’s right to make his or her own health care decision, then I don’t know what is.