More NCFE and Arizona Fallout from the web

Monday, February 26, 2007
From Me and Ted against the world… Reese
National Century Financial Enterprises: Hangovers

We’ve been writing about the effects of the NCFE bankruptcy for three years. It’s still causing problems. One of its associated companies managed a hospital Anacosta in southeast Washington. Its first bankruptcy, according to the Washington Post, resulted in the death of seven people. Now its in financial trouble again, and a Post business columnist, Steven Pearlstein, comments on the situation and offers his solution.

One hospital “was bought out of bankruptcy a few years back by a sleazy Arizona outfit that had bled it so dry that…district health officials threatened to shut it down.” It reopened, again under the management of the “sleazy Arizona outfit.” Under pressure from the city, it’s up for sale again. There’s only one bidder and Pearlstein question his record and his credentials.

The second hospital, he writes, “has had continuing problems with service quality and can’t generate the patient volume to support residency programs.” The third “may only now be returning to profitability after painful staff cuts.” The last “is bleeding cash requiring an emergency $14 million taxpayer bail out just to keep its doors open until June.”

All these hospitals serve desperately poor, predominately black, largely uninsured southeast Washington and neighboring Prince George’s county. Pearlstein, a free-marketeer, writes that the four hospitals are “within a thirty minute drive of each other.” He suggests “a consolidation that would leave the region with fewer but bigger, better and more financially-viable hospitals.” Maybe consolidation would work financially, but how would it serve the community? Thirty minutes is a long time to wait if you’re giving birth and bleeding. It’s a long time to wait with a bullet wound or knife in your body. It may be the difference between life and death if you’ve had a heart attack. Maybe it makes economic sense, but Pearlstein wouldn’t want to live there.

Who besides me remembers when there was an institution called “City Hospital”? The taxpayers paid, the hospitals functioned, and poor people got reasonable care. Maybe hospitals shouldn’t be a business at all.