By Maxey, Naishtat, Greenberg                         H.B. No. 2837
          Substitute the following for H.B. No. 2837:
          By Combs                                          C.S.H.B. No. 2837
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the use by the City of Austin of certain real property
    1-3  designated for a public purpose.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  The legislature finds that the city of Austin
    1-6  would facilitate and improve the availability, accessibility and
    1-7  cost of health care services to its residents if it could lease or
    1-8  transfer all or part of the city's hospital, including the main
    1-9  hospital buildings or the professional office building, for
   1-10  operation on a non-profit basis by another entity experienced in
   1-11  providing health care services, including an entity currently
   1-12  operating a health care facility located in the city of Austin.
   1-13        SECTION 2.  Section 2, Chapter 492, Acts of the 67th
   1-14  Legislature, Regular Session, 1981, is amended by amending Section
   1-15  2 and adding Section 2A to read as follows:
   1-16        Sec. 2.  The city of Austin is hereby exclusively empowered
   1-17  to use such designated land as shown on such plat and as patented
   1-18  to the City of Austin on July 15, 1994, for any public purpose. In
   1-19  this Act, "public purpose" includes the lease or operation of the
   1-20  property for a health care purpose by a non-profit organization as
   1-21  authorized by the city of Austin, regardless of whether the lease
   1-22  or operation might be considered to be anticompetitive under the
   1-23  antitrust laws of the United States or this state.
    2-1        Sec. 2A.  A non-profit organization described in Section 2 of
    2-2  this Act and the city, county or other public entity shall use best
    2-3  efforts to provide and fund health care services without regard to
    2-4  an individual's ability to pay.
    2-5        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-6  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-7  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-8  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-9  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-10  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-11  passage, and it is so enacted.