This article in the Houston Chronicle by Todd Ackerman floored me today for two reasons: First that I was completely unaware of it and second because it is a complete waste of money, it only serves to increases costs of health care, and it locks Harris County residents into a single, inflexible delivery method of health care. Ridiculous.
There is already an over-supply of hospital beds in Harris County. If you think not, you aren’t paying attention. Think of the hospitals that have closed in the past few years. Building monolithic structures goes against the trend to smaller, more flexible, local neighborhood care centers. And in fact, County Judge Ed Emmett spoke about that very concept in the debate he had recently with Gordon Quan. So this shocked me:
Wednesday’s ceremonial event drew enthusiastic supporters such as state Reps. Al Green and Alma Allen, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and County Commissioner El Franco Lee.
Enthusiastic support for wasting $118 million of taxpayer money? Good grief. I asked Judge Emmett via email about this and while he did repeat his overall desire to back away from brick and mortar projects by contracting with care providers already in place, he did not state that Mr. Ackerman was wrong in his observation. I hear that he will be at the new southside HCRP office in Clear Lake tonight, perhaps I can make it down there and ask again.
Commissioner Steve Radack said it correctly:
“The district is making a huge mistake investing this amount of taxpayer money when so many hospitals around the county are begging for patients,” Radack said. “The district could contract out its outpatient services to those hospitals, putting them up for bid and saving taxpayers millions of dollars.”
In fact, they are already doing some of that. Rather than build new monuments to bureaucracy, they should expand the contracted services.
But this is the line in the article that set me off:
Some of the space freed up at Ben Taub will enable the hospital to convert patient rooms from four beds to two beds, part of the district’s strategy to attract paying patients. That effort has already begun.
That is a much milder version than appeared when the article first ran. It quoted David Lopez, the district’s president and chief executive officer, as saying:
and make the district more competitive for paying patients
The LAST thing we need to be doing is driving private hospitals out of business by scraping off the cream of the crop and leaving nothing left but people that can’t, or don’t, pay their bills. If you aren’t not familiar with the current system, you might think that I’m exaggerating but the truth is that non-profits currently provide very little free health care. That’s right, take a look a MD Anderson or the Memorial System and see just how little free care they provide. And to think that the HCHD wants to add to the burden on private companies by attracting more paying patients is outrageous.
Public health care systems should be a safety net, last resort type of program. Reducing capacity (number of beds from 4 to 2) is stupid.
What bothers me most is that I don’t really know how the system works. The board members are listed here and it says that they are appointed by Commissioners Court for two year terms. If you look closely, you’ll see one guy that has been on the board for 24 years – friends, that’s too long.
We need to do something to highlight stuff like this. As a preliminary step, I’ve created a Facebook Group called Harris County Commissioners Court Watch just to see if anyone is interested. This is not a partisan issue or even a conservative one. Liberals should be interested as well – I mean, seriously, did we really need to pay for a Soapbox Derby hill? If we could get enough people interested, we could have someone present at every Commissioners Court meeting and highlight waste like this. Maybe I’m dreaming but I think it can be done.
Blair McClure has already dug up some of the information:
- Harris County Fiscal 2010-11 Funds Appropriations
- Hospital District 2009 Annual Report
- Commissioners Court Meeting Schedule
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is possible to stop this $118 million waste of taxpayer money. But maybe we can stop these types of projects in the future. That money should have been used to provide care for the neediest among us, not to build a monument to the current board.
Timing is everything. Texas Watchdog just released a video on how to investigate schools – great information.