The general focus of my writing is on issues of significance to the military and veteran community. Those who are on active duty are denied any means by which they can address wrongs resulting from government actions or inactions. I attempt to be a small voice on their behalf. Veterans and retired military personnel have long been ignored by those in power. I also try to speak in their defense. In a different arena of concern, I write on the failings of liberal politics and the dangers presented to the public by media bias.
Fri Nov 20, 2009
Proposed Healthcare Reform Keeps Hospital Doors Closed
Harlingen, Texas, November 18, 2009: If we are to believe the nightly news reports, half of our population is eagerly awaiting the Obama Administration’s healthcare reform bill to bring about lower prices, faster service and medical care to everyone. That mantra may be a soothing promise to some of those who are currently uninsured, but to the citizens of San Benito, Texas it means they still do not even have a hospital to provide current of future treatment.
Three years ago the former for-profit Dolly Vinsant Hospital closed its doors, unable to generate the revenue it needed to keep providing treatment to local residents. San Benito, a city of 30,000 people, no longer had the hospital services that had existed there since the end of World War II.
In 2008 a number of primary care doctors and surgeons formed the San Benito Hospital Partners, spent $1.1 million to buy the foreclosed hospital property and promised the city its largest economic development project in recent years. They were prepared to invest in a multi-million dollar renovation and reconstruction project and open the doors by this fall with plans for it to provide general hospital care and specialized surgeries.
Excitement was everywhere in San Benito. Local leaders saw a future increase in property tax revenue. People who had lost their jobs when the former hospital went out of business were eagerly hoping they would be among the first healthcare providers hired by the new facility. A huge sign was placed in front of the building…”Opening In The Fall of 2009”.
The sign is still in front of the building today, but nothing else has happened.
What went wrong? Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in November 2008. He had campaigned on the promise of healthcare reform and among the many things he promised to change, if elected, was that no doctor would have ownership in a hospital. Since this huge economic development project was completely funded by doctors, there were serious concerns among investors about the future of the project. The San Benito Hospital Partners had already invested $1.1 million of their own money in the hospital with no certainty they could even recoup that investment, let alone the multi-millions of dollars that would be required to open the doors of the facility. Everything came to a halt. A year has now passed without a single nail being pounded at the hospital site. There are no plans to move forward with the project until there is a clear picture of healthcare’s future in the United States.
The only certainty is, if Obama’s plan to deny hospital ownership to medical practitioners remains active someplace within those 2,000 plus pages of healthcare reform legislation, the only hospital San Benito, Texas will have is one with boarded up windows and padlocked doors.