As South Florida hospitals continue to express concerns about costs, the first flight of Haitian earthquake victims into the United States since last Wednesday is expected to land Monday night with about 20 patients at the Palm Beach International airport, the U.S. government reported.

From there, the patients are likely to be dispersed, depending on their injuries. Jaime Caldwell of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association said 20 patients are likely to stay in South Florida, with two being flown on to Walter Reed, the military hospital in the Washington area.

``The decision about which hospitals has to wait until the final manifest is produced and then, based on the severity of the injuries, the decisions will be made as to which hospitals will receive the patients,'' Caldwell said in an e-mail to The Miami Herald.

``Planners in Haiti and here are attempting to put a good mix of patients on these flights so as to not overload the local resources. . . . Sometime later this afternoon state and local folks will look at each patient and, based on bed availability, distribute the patients,'' Caldwell said.

One pediatric patient might end up at Miami Children's Hospital. Most of the rest will likely be spread across Palm Beach and Broward hospitals. ``Remember, the Super Bowl is coming up and there will be great caution to not overload Miami-Dade's hospitals,'' Caldwell said.

Last week, state emergency planners said they would stop sending Haitian patients to South Florida because the hospitals needed to be prepared for emergency care for visitors attending the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl.

The Air Force transport, a C-130J, was scheduled to leave MacDill at noon Monday, land in Port-au-Prince at 3:30 and be back in Florida at 8:30 p.m. Originally, the White House said the plane would land in Tampa, but that was later changed to Palm Beach.

Flights of Haitian patients have been delayed for several days because of confusion about what hospitals were willing to accept them.

At Jackson Health System, Eneida Roldan said the system's main hospital, Jackson Memorial, was now at full capacity for adults in terms of occupied beds and staff available and could not handle any more Haitian patients. ``We still have some room for children,'' Roldan said.

Meanwhile, South Florida leaders are putting pressure on Washington to help get federal funds to pay for treating patients here and in Haiti, where a University of Miami team has set up a temporary hospital near the airport.

UM President Donna Shalala said she has had ``talks with high government officials,'' but considered the conversations private, according to UM spokeswoman Jeanne Antol Krull. At Jackson, Roldan said she had been been keeping close track of how much Haitian patients are costing the financially strapped public hospital system.

So far Jackson's three hospitals have treated 137 patients, of which 98 have been discharged. Forty-two have been children. Seventy were Haitian nationals and 39 were U.S. citizens.

Fifty-five percent do not have insurance. So far, those patients have run up $2.3 million in charges. Thirty-five percent have insurance, and Jackson is planning so far to bill those insurers $2.3 million.

Complicating recovery in some instances is the discovery that some of the victims have other problems. At least one who arrived has cancer, Roldan said.

When Gov. Charlie Crist visited Jackson last week, Roldan said she gave him the facts about Jackson's precarious financial situation and the cost of the Haitians.

She said that both U.S. senators from Florida have called Jackson to inquire about how much the earthquake victims were costing.

One possibility is that the unfunded patients might qualify for an emergency provision in the state's Medicaid program, Roldan said. That provision is now paying for undocumented immigrants who are using the Jackson emergency department to receive dialysis.