Posted by
Rich from NW Indiana on Friday, April 04, 2008 6:18:16 PM
In Illinois, hospitals cannot just provide whatever services it thinks it needs to provide. Nor can it chose where to provide those services either. The state has the final say. They need to ask to build anything, even doctors need permission to open an office. The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board regulates health care construction in Illinois. Why, I don't know, the nanny state thinks it knows better then the decisions made by those who operate and own the hospitals.
Now St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island is
closing. Its been losing money for years, and there was no sign of an end to those losses, in fact the losses were getting larger. It is very hard to run a hospital with patients with no money and a state that doesn't like to pay its bills on time. They have been trying to open a second campus in Orland Park, but had been turned down. Now if they had been allowed to open the second campus, this wouldn't be happening. Because then the Orland Park location would subsidies the Blue Island location. But the state knows better.
I was surprised it was St. Francis was the first to announce it's closing. I thought that Roseland Hospital or Jackson Park Hospital on the south side of Chicago would go under before a bigger hospital like St. Francis. Those two hospitals have been on the endangered list for years. Somehow they hang on, but they could be gone quickly too.
Its a double whammy, a state that doesn't pay its bills and a state that won't let you move around to try to make some money. Why the state is paying bills is part of a larger problem. But not allowing hospitals to make business decisions on its own is a big problem too. In Indiana, there is no regulations on hospital construction. If a hospital can afford it and thinks it has a business case to go forward the state doesn't care. Hospitals along the border here in Northwest Indiana are booming. And a new hospital is going forward in Hammond. Not because of need of a second hospital in Hammond but to serve mostly Illinois residents priced out of state .
Health cost are lower in Indiana. Insurance for doctors is more affordable, and tort reform has gone forward here too (Illinois is at the bottom when it come to tort reform). The free enterprise system and private charity work far better then any government program. Allowing hospital to go after wealthy patients is the easiest way to fund care for the less wealthy. The reason that St. Francis cannot even be given away is because its broke and there is no money coming anytime soon. It cannot only serve the poor, the money will run out again and again. Then the government comes in,,,,, its too late, enormously expensive, and lousy for everybody.
This is just one situation that make me wonder why anyone would want socialized medicine. Instead of ditching this stupid idea once and for all, they got to keep trying to make something that cannot work, work. Let the market place do it without unneeded regulations, it will do the job much better then social medicine ever could. Too many business decisions (not just medical) are made with regulations in mind more then other reasons. And that is bad news for everybody when free enterprise is stopped.