Cahill dismisses the recent kerfuffle over hospital executive salaries, saying local ones are in line with similar salaries in the industry. And he said the question of Medicare reimbursement is a challenge, but one which is unlikely to be solved any time soon. The data in support of increasing the local hospitals’ reimbursement rate, said Cahill, “just isn’t there like it was for the hospitals across the river.”
A pitch for hearings
As HealthAlliance begins to explore its options, Cahill emphasizes the importance of getting public input into the process. “I’ve made an offer to host a series of public hearings to let the community make their voices heard,” he said. “I think the community would warmly greet, for example, the possibility of Benedictine becoming the hospital where you go to visit your family who’s sick, and Kingston being the hospital where you go for outpatient services. I think the community would recognize that as a perfectly legitimate evolution of health care.
“What I will do, whether HealthAlliance accepts my offer or not, is conduct a series of public meetings in and around the greater Kingston area. I’ll invite the community to raise their questions. If the hospitals participate, maybe we can get their questions answered. If not, we’ll make those questions perfectly public. That’s what we did when the Berger Commission came into this community and tried to impose a solution on us. We said no, we’d rather do this ourselves. And we did it.”
David Lundquist, CEO of HealthAlliance, said this week that he was open to the idea of public hearings — when the time is right. “It’s way too early right now,” he said. “We’re still in the phase of doing our due diligence. But we have every intention of pursuing this in an open and transparent manner.”
Cahill said the ultimate decision has to include the community.
“This circumstance that we’re in, this community designed,” he said. “The question is, did we properly execute it in accordance with what we said we could execute? I said I’m not ready to throw in the towel on this. I believe we can make this work. I still do.”
“Similar salaries in the industry”, eh Cahill? Well it looks like you ARE willing to throw in the towel on reducing health care costs by making health care a nonprofit industry. But that’s ok you see…because by stating(what everyone knows but thank you Mr. Cahill for graciously stating so thus making yourself uncharacteristically transparent)that the community is going to “embrace”(or “railroad”– depending on your perspective)a scenario in which Benedictine maintains the lead, this type of outcome is revealed the real object of this “community involvement” call of his….
In the meantime, the day is not seized over reducing healthcare costs or confronting the legal challenges posed by the fraud emanating from the biggest subindustry cash cow out of Benedictine Hospital.
But why even TRY to snatch ANY victory out of the hands of such ongoing defeat? Why, that would be too courageous, politicallly and otherwise!! The lawyers continue to live well…..what about all that money, and where is it coming from, dare I inquire!!!!