Now Modern Healthcare has reported about a bill in the California legislature aimed at supposedly not for profit hospitals that put money ahead of patients:
Officials with the California Nurses Association say the proposed law—AB 975—is an attempt to bring more accountability to money-making hospitals that use tax exemptions to turn tidy profits and give hefty salaries to executives.
Furthermore,
Charles Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association, said many profitable tax-exempt hospitals have lost the public's trust in recent years by making profits their top mission and paying salaries that allow executives to buy yachts while 'chipping away' at less-profitable services for women, children, the poor and mentally ill.
'What this bill does is, it really is an effort to increase transparency and make hospitals more accountable to the communities that they purport to serve,' Idelson said. 'Hospitals that are meeting their charity care obligation should welcome this process and understand that it is an opportunity to rebuild some of the public trust that they have lost through their other policies and practices.'
Hospital Leaders Deploy Talking Points, Including Logical Fallacies
Perhaps predictably, hospital executives are not so happy:
'This is less about good public policy than it is about politics,' said Michael Hunn, chief executive for southern California hospitals at Providence Health & Services, which has five hospitals in the state. 'I would hate to see a political agenda further harm those that are marginalized in society,' Hunn said. 'No matter what the legislative and political process is, we need to keep in mind the human beings that it is our responsibility to care for.'
Note that Providence Health & Services is the ostensibly non-profit Catholic hospital system accused of putting paying executives multi-million dollar compensation ahead of giving low level employees minimally adequate health insurance as we posted here. According to the organization's latest 990 form, Mr Hunn got $1,576,978 total compensation in 2011. So one wonders which human beings he is feeling most responsible for? Note also that the unsubstantiated allusion to a "political agenda," appears to be an appeal to ridicule,
"a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in
an 'argument.'" We have noted before how public relations flacks
working for top executives of health care organizations seem to be very
good at using such logical fallacies. The argument Mr Hunn made seems essentially identical to an argument used against a lawsuit to end the tax exemption
of a huge Pennsylvania hospital system that has apparently angered the
communities which it is supposed to serve while paying its executives
millions (look here).
In addition,
Jan Emerson-Shea, spokesman for the California Hospital Association, said the bill's union backers were hiding their real agenda with 'red herring' issues like highly compensated executives and the superficial dissonance of not-for-profit organizations with healthy margins.
''Not-for-profit hospital' doesn't mean that you don't make a profit--all hospitals need to make a profit to keep the doors open,' Emerson-Shea said
Summary
It really is beginning to look like there is some sort of trend, albeit still small, towards organized resistance against the hired executives and cronies who have made themselves rich from large health care organizations, putting their self-interest and enrichment apparently before taking care of patients and serving the public's health. As we have said ad infinitum....
Health care organizations need leaders that uphold the core values of health care, and focus on and are accountable for the mission, not on secondary responsibilities that conflict with these values and their mission, and not on self-enrichment. Leaders ought to be rewarded reasonably, but not lavishly, for doing what ultimately improves patient care, or when applicable, good education and good research. On the other hand, those who authorize, direct and implement bad behavior ought to suffer negative consequences sufficient to deter future bad behavior.
If we do not fix the severe problems affecting the leadership and governance of health care, and do not increase accountability, integrity and transparency of health care leadership and governance, we will be as much to blame as the leaders when the system collapses.
1 comment:
Feels related somehow
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/sports/ncaabasketball/rutgers-fires-basketball-coach-after-video-surfaces.html
Post a Comment