Cutbacks in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement fees are amongst the reasons why two much-needed hospitals in DC may close.
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If they do close, the picture gets even worse. The remaining District hospitals get hammered. Some have threatened to close their trauma centers and ERs if the D.C. government lets Greater Southeast close; that is the prod being used to force the city government to continue support (which it promised to do after closing D.C. General Hospital in the late 1990s, because it was costing the city too much money.) This isn’t the first crisis with Greater Southeast. There was another major one a couple of years ago when their receivables re-seller defaulted, depriving them of needed income for operations. At that time payroll and suppliers were in default.
So the healthcare system in the one city run by Congress is collapsing–just as the collectivists are pushing for even more federal takeover of healthcare nationwide. I wonder if any democrats in congress apppreciate the irony?
D.C. is not “run by Congress.” The District has been governed by a home rule process for nearly four decades. The mayor and city council are elected. Because of spectacular and abusive corruption and mismanagement, the city was put in a type of receivership whereby the mayor was effectively stripped of nearly all fiscal authority. This was in fact a good thing, as the then mayor, Marion Barry, ran an egregiously corrupt and abusive administration while the city went bankrupt. The receivership plan was the only option save a de facto revocation of D.C. home rule and an outright takeover of city’s day-to-day management by the Congress. The latter was a situation neither the city council nor the Congress wanted, for different but equally compelling reasons.
So congress has the ultimate say on what degree of home rule they get. Sounds like Congress is in charge there. DC, I might add is down to it’s very cultural dna a creation of the federal goverment and the product, lock, stock and barrel of government paternalism.
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