$230 Million+ Funding Shortfall at PPH

The Palomar Pomerado Health district now predicts a funding shortfall of $230 million for its planned facilities expansion. The funding shortfall is on top of $50 million that PPH needs to raise from charitable donations to the PPH Foundation.
Because of the funding shortfall, PPH is considering a two-phase plan of building two-thirds of a resort-style “healing-environment” hospital in the ERTC, and leaving the women and children's services center in the existing downtown Palomar Medical Center until 2013. The first phase would exhaust all of the funds earmarked for the facilities expansion. The second phase, which would include building a new women and children's services center in the ERTC, would require new funding sources.
PPH has not calculated how much this two-phase plan would cost over the one-phase plan having the $230 million funding shortfall. It is very likely that the two-phase plan will cost substantially more than the one-phase plan because the several-year delay in constructing the women and children's services building in the ERTC will increase its cost. Building two-thirds of a resort-style hospital in the ERTC with a promise to build the remaining third at some future date is a recipe for an expensive disaster.