Anybody who thinks the government can do a better job than the private sector of managing America’s health care system should take a good look at the publicly owned Prince George’s Hospital System, which has been hemorrhaging money for years and has stayed afloat only with more than $70 million in public subsidies. The basic problem is that no business forced to give away half of its goods or services can hope to stay afloat for long, but that’s exactly what state and county officials expect to happen. The long-brewing crisis came to a head this week, when Dimensions Healthcare CEO G.T. Dunlop Ecker, who heads the nonprofit that operates the system, warned that it couldn’t even afford to file for bankruptcy and would have to close.
Closure would be disastrous for the 180,000 patients who depend on the system and would jeopardize the livelihoods of 2,300 health care workers. But for months,
Gov. Martin O’Malley, the Maryland General Assembly, the Prince George’s County Council and County Executive Jack Johnson have been so busy blaming each other for the crisis that they couldn’t find a permanent solution. They were hoping that somebody — anybody — would take off their hands the system’s $60 million pension liability and its tens of thousands of indigent and uninsured patients who by law must be treated regardless of their ability to pay. Nobody did.
While the Maryland Health Department was drawing up emergency contingency plans with other hospitals and service providers for thousands of soon-to-be-displaced trauma, emergency and obstetrics patients, county officials finally agreed Wednesday night to a last-minute deal to keep the doors open until June 2008. But this is a tourniquet, not a solution. Prince George’s Hospital System remains in critical financial condition, with nearly half of its patients unable to pay their bills. The day of reckoning has only been postponed.
Platitudes about “compassion” are especially inappropriate coming from the same politicians who chose brinksmanship over a long-term solution to this continuing public health crisis. Exacerbating the problem is the growing wave of uninsured illegal immigrants coming into Maryland.
O’Malley says the government’s goal is to “build a world-class health care institution” in Prince George’s County. He must mean the Third World. Despite subsidies of more than $70 million over the last five years, vendors are asking Dimensions to pay cash for basic supplies like latex gloves and injection needles, and overworked nurses haven’t gotten a raise in two years. The latest emergency funding from the county will only postpone the inevitable day of reckoning. Taxpayers will ultimately get stuck with the bill.
Want to see what government-run health care looks like? This is it.
