Jackson Health System says it could lose roughly $64 million a year in property-tax funding within two years if Florida voters approve Amendment 3 in November. The ballot measure would raise the homestead property-tax exemption on primary homes from $50,000 to $250,000 by 2028, reducing a revenue stream Jackson uses to care for uninsured and underinsured residents across Miami-Dade County.
Jackson Health CEO David Zambrana discussed the system’s exposure during a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce panel on Amendment 3 in Miami on Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported. Projections cited in that report show Jackson losing about $34.7 million in fiscal year 2027 and roughly $29 million more in fiscal year 2028, with the annual loss stabilizing near $64 million after that. The chamber also held a separate Amendment 3 panel at Jungle Island and plans to host town halls across Miami-Dade County about the measure’s potential effects and the funding decisions it could require, according to remarks from the chamber’s P.J. Campbell relayed by the Herald. The chamber says it is not advocating for how people should vote.
A Statewide Hit Concentrated in South Florida
Jackson’s projected loss is part of a broader hit to Florida’s public hospital infrastructure. A statewide analysis found that the state’s 28 public hospital and healthcare taxing districts could collectively lose $323 million over three years if Amendment 3 passes, according to the Florida Policy Institute. Four South Florida systems — Jackson, North Broward Hospital District, South Broward Hospital District, and the Health Care District of Palm Beach County — would together absorb more than 70% of that statewide loss.
The North Broward Hospital District, which operates as Broward Health, faces the single largest hit of any Florida health system: a projected $100.4 million loss over fiscal years 2027 through 2029, per WLRN. Just south, Memorial Healthcare System in southern Broward is projected to lose a comparatively modest $2.2 million over the same period. In Palm Beach County, the Health Care District faces a $66.5 million three-year loss that would strain funding for the Trauma Hawk air ambulance service, school health programs, and Lakeside Medical Center — the county’s only public hospital, serving the rural Glades region around Belle Glade.
Jackson’s Public Structure and Funding Context
Miami-Dade County’s FY 2026-27 proposed budget identifies the Public Health Trust that governs Jackson Health as an entity created by county ordinance in 1973 to operate, govern, and maintain designated health facilities, according to the Miami-Dade County FY 2026-27 proposed budget. That county-government structure helps explain why a change in local property-tax collections could affect Jackson, although the projected $64 million figure is the system’s estimate of the specific Amendment 3 exposure. The potential loss also follows a history of concentrated public-hospital financing in South Florida. A 2015 study prepared for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration found that Miami-Dade County, the North Broward Hospital District, and the South Broward Hospital District accounted for 82% of Florida’s intergovernmental-transfer funds collected in state fiscal year 2012-13. The finding provides historical context for why changes to local hospital funding can have effects well beyond a single system.
What’s Actually on the Line at Jackson
Jackson Health provides care regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. The system operates hospitals, nursing homes, a transplant center, urgent-care sites, doctors’ offices, and clinics across Miami-Dade, with services including behavioral health, labor and delivery, emergency care at the Ryder Trauma Center, and organ transplantation. It also partners with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine…