A joint editorial published in the Florida Sun Sentinel and the Orlando Sentinel newspapers says what needs to be said: "Keep Public Hospitals Public For the Patients' Sake." (The link is to The Florida Sun Sentinel website; the Orlando Sentinel has put the editorial behind a paywall with much of the rest of that newspaper.)
The spur for the editorial is a bill that has been introduced in the Florida House by a wealthy member. He is still in his first term but he has lost no time providing an opportunity for private equity and other investors to convert public hospitals to private profit centers. The editorial pretty much says it all.
The editorial's only drawback is that it is overly tentative, too iffy, whereas direct description is called for here. For example, a quote from the "CEO of Florida's Safety Net Hospital Alliance" says that the bill "seems" to give a competitive advantage to the money-making funds that would take over public hospitals.
Of course it "seems" to. The bill was written to give them an advantage and to make it easier for the private investors to take over public hospitals. In the Orlando Sentinel version, a sentence appears that is not found in the Florida Sun Sentinel's version, in which the Orlando paper weakly intones that "It's foolish to assume that private chains wouldn't come sniffing after such profitable targets."
They already are. The "private chains" highlighted in this timely editorial are already sniffing after public hospitals. Thanks to these two newspapers for sniffing out these private chains of publicity-shy investors who are trying to change patient care into nothing but making profits.
Please read the disclaimer. This article 2024 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved. The author has pointed to the growing issues presented by the takeover of hospitals, nursing homes, physicians' practices, and other public healthcare providers for private profit, in Dennis J. Wall, Catastrophe Claims / Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters, Private Equity and Medicare, § 18C:6.50 (Thomson Reuters forthcoming in the Spring of 2024).
COMMENTS, DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION: WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS MATTERS.
I wrote the following Comments and posted them on the Federal Government's eRulemaking website:
Agency: DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (DOJ)
Document Type: Proposed Rule
Title: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability: Accessibility of Medical Diagnostic Equipment of State and Local Government Entities
Document ID: DOJ-CRT-2024-0001-0001
Comment:
Re: RIN 1190-AA78 "The MDE Standards were developed after extensive notice and comment.... They have gained wide recognition in the United States." 89 F.R. at 2193. Your Issue 20 in which your Department seeks public comment on the Standards for Accessible Medical Diagnostic Equipment and whether there are any other standards for accessible MDE that the DOJ should consider.
If it is true that as you wrote in your Notice that the MDE Standards have gained wide recognition in the United States after extensive notice and comment, consider filing an action for Declaratory Relief in the appropriate District Court. Consider naming as defendant(s) some, any or all of the organizations likely to benefit from lack of accessibility to MDE, and give some consideration to groups that are likely to gain from accessible MDE such as groups of disabled persons.
Consider in short that these Standards were developed based on evidence and not conjecture. Share that evidence with a Court in a litigated case, perhaps after your current Comment-gathering period is done.
At best, you can establish that the Standards are reasonable and serve the purpose for which they are intended; at worst, you can establish that agencies are preferable to judges making these Standards. Thank you.
Posted by Dennis Wall on February 14, 2024 at 01:56 PM in Comments to Proposed Rules Changes, Disability, Discrimination, Rules and regulations | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: #ChevronRule, #CivilRightsDivision, #DepartmentOfJustice, #DisabilityDiscrimination, #MDE, #MedicalDiagnosticEquipment