PrintOctober 12, 2010
ObamaCare Strikes Again
In yet another damaging consequence of the rollout of ObamaCare, three Pennsylvania hospitals have been put up for sale, with the announcement clouded by mysterious circumstances.
Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator reports that the hospital group's CEO said in an interview last week regarding the sale that
Health care reform is absolutely playing a role. Was it the precipitating factor in this decision? No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years? Absolutely.Mr. Lord's reporting indicates that a Sister Carol Keehan is a) among those present at the signing of the ObamaCare bill b) the signer of a letter to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) that allegedly convinced him to vote for ObamaCare, and c) is the president of the influential Catholic Health Association (CHA) who released a statement, following the hospital CEO's interview, with this headline;
Alarmist News Reports About Catholic Hospitals Are False; CHA Supports Difficult Decision by Mercy Health Partners.The hospital CEO then issued a new statement a few days later to the effect that
The rationale for our initiative has been mischaracterized by certain politicized media outlets and severely distorted by some special interest groups.The Spectator column indicates there is evidence that suggests behind the scenes pressure was applied to the Hospital CEO to make him back off his original statement blaming ObamaCare for a role in the decision to sell the hospitals.
The press release on the possible sale states that "For more than two decades area hospitals have endured lower than average reimbursements for care and a static population base." The ObamaCare cuts in Medicare reimbursement would make the hospitals economically unviable, a concern likely to affect many similar small Catholic hospitals across the country.
A further concern is that as Catholic hospitals in a heavily Catholic area they currently do not perform abortions, according to the article, which may change under a new owner.
One of the hospitals happens to be located in Scranton, Joe Biden's hometown. Local Democrat House members and ObamaCare voters Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney are up for reelection, and Pennsylvania Democrat Senate candidate and ObamaCare voter Joe Sestak is running behind Republican Pat Toomey in the polls.
Thus it would not be surprising to find an immense amount of pressure applied to deflect attention from the negative consequences of the President's signature legislation.
Mr. Lord quotes a Scranton doctor:
Alarmingly, the doctor, with a lifetime of practice in hand, says that "hospitals close in clusters where there is decreased income in terms of relatively low Medicare reimbursement...because they are the most vulnerable." He adds that what is happening in Scranton, Nanticoke, and Tunkhannock with the Mercy hospitals "is just the beginning. It will happen everywhere because reimbursements will be reduced" under ObamaCare. Particularly, he adds, in areas where you have a high elderly population.
If the doctor is right, and he is not alone in saying this, the proposed sale of the three Mercy hospitals becomes a harbinger of what will happen nationally as a result of ObamaCare slowly tightening its government tentacles over the private health care system. Which means the sale of the three Mercy hospitals has added Scranton to what the Wall Street Journal has already called ObamaCare's "trail of destruction."
The rate at which ObamaCare's tentacles are already tightening is rather alarming, particularly when combined with the heavy-handed, boot-on the-neck tactics of the Obama administration in their attempts to squelch any perceived fallout of the new health care order.
