We live in a community that cares for its own. When hurricanes strike, when economies collapse, when refugees come to our shores, we have always taken care of our neighbors. No institution embodies that spirit more than Jackson Health System.

Built by one of our founding fathers in 1899, Jackson has been funded by our residents for more than 100 years. Today it holds a unique place in the world of medicine and the heart of our community. Were it only the primary teaching hospital for the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine — training some of our community’s top doctors while providing internationally-sought care and cutting-edge research — it would be a source of pride. But the promise of Jackson is so much greater because it promises to deliver that high standard of care to every resident of Miami-Dade County.

Ask your friends: At least one of them has a story about how Jackson taught her to walk after a critical injury, or cured his mother’s cancer, or saved her premature baby’s life.

Jackson, like Miami itself, has enjoyed success and survived challenges without ever abandoning that mission. With new leaders and support from the community, Jackson is clawing its way back from the brink of financial ruin by reinventing itself once again. By enacting reforms instead of simply talking about them, our public healthcare system is cutting costs, improving service and positioning itself to grow into a modern and thriving healthcare business. Having observed Jackson for many years, I believe it can adopt the best strategies of private hospitals while remaining true to that treasured community mission.

But our community’s long and tireless investment is now being threatened. Proposals to cut Medicaid spending and other hospital funding across Florida would slash Jackson’s state funding by $230 million or more. That would be the eighth such cut in the past 10 years; last year’s cut was larger than all the previous ones combined, and this one would be twice that cut. And because the federal government matches the state’s contribution, we have to give up $2 to save just $1 in the state budget.

Our community could be left with no way to care for taxpayers with serious medical conditions. Some of our sickest and most desperate neighbors could be turned away. Jackson might find itself closing services, forced to take away valuable programs that even well-insured patients need. If adopted, the message to Miami-Dade would be: Raise your own taxes or deny care to your own residents.

Massive layoffs would be inevitable at a time when our community cannot afford longer unemployment lines. At a time when generations of investment in Jackson are on the verge of yielding great advances, we instead risk falling even further behind.

There is no question that we need to corral skyrocketing healthcare costs, and our industry’s astronomical rates of fraud are a statewide shame. But those problems need thoughtful solutions, not clumsy swings with a rusty ax. Medicaid should start paying hospitals for the medical work they do, rather than providing the same daily reimbursement for both a simple gallbladder surgery and a multiple-organ transplant. Investigators should have better resources to pursue the fly-by-night scammers who pillage government programs.

We have built so much in Miami. We have built museums and arenas, parks and libraries, theaters and trains. We built these places on the hope and dream that they would improve our lives. Jackson has always been different — we have not chosen, year after year, to keep supporting Jackson because we want it for ourselves. We built Jackson for each other, for our neighbors, for the belief that great cities care for their own.

Carlos A. Migoya is president and CEO of Jackson Health System.