Blame game.

Following up, it seems it's politicking and poor communication led to the stoppage of the military transports bearing needy Haitians to hospitals here:

South Florida hospital spokespeople strongly denied Saturday that their facilities are refusing to take more trauma patients from Haiti, leaving them to die at field hospitals in the earthquake-ravaged country.

Military planes stopped flying the injured to Florida on Wednesday, after Gov. Charlie Crist wrote to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, asking the federal government for help covering millions of dollars in care that hospitals around the state are providing, the New York Times reported in Saturday's editions.

Crist pointed out that Florida hospitals were ``at capacity.'

Friday, Maj. James Lowe, deputy chief of public affairs for the United States Transportation Command, told the Times that ``the places they were being taken, without being specific, were not willing to continue to receive those patients without a different arrangement being worked out by the government to pay for the care.'

Not so, said Dr. William O'Neill, executive dean of clinical affairs at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.
...
He estimated that the treatment for about 50 patients brought to Ryder Trauma center would range from $50,000-$100,000, and called the dustup between the state and the feds ``a little bit of a power contest... to see who will blink first.'

In an e-mail to members on Friday, Jaime S. Caldwell, vice president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association, seemed to blame Crist.

``We are beginning to hear that hospitals are being identified as the reason for the Governor's decision to discontinue the medical flights from Haiti. And, the reason being given is that hospital's wanted to know how they were going to get paid,' Caldwell wrote.

``I have been active in this effort since the beginning. At no time have I heard any hospital in Southeast Florida say that they wouldn't take a Haitian earthquake survivor because of financial reasons. On the contrary. At every point along the way the healthcare industry has been advised to rigorously document their expenses associated with the care provided to these unfortunate patients and that efforts were underway to determine financial responsibility.

``At no time did any hospital say, `Don't send any more to us because we aren't getting paid!' '
...
Saturday, during a Tampa street-festival breakfast, Crist said that the intent of his letter to HHS was to say that ``we need help from our federal friends. Florida, because of its proximity to Haiti, is really bearing the brunt of this, and we're happy to do that, but if our sister states and the federal government could help -- that was the intent.'

It was not, he continued, ``to stop anything. We're humanitarians.'