Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
The Miami Herald
Apr. 02, 2004
Greeley, Colo., Hospital Suffers Financial Crisis
By Tom Hacker, Greeley Tribune
Bad debt, charity care and federal reimbursement shortfalls are strangling Colorado hospitals, with Greeley’s hospital shouldering a disproportionate share of the statewide burden, an industry report released today says. And North Colorado Medical Center’s top official said Thursday the numbers show a crisis so severe that only a move toward a national health-care system would bring a solution.
“I was one of the last people, because of my political leanings, to ever see a national health plan as the way to go,” said Jon Sewell, NCMC’s chief executive officer. “But it’s becoming more and more apparent that that’s the only solution I can envision. You can’t have this growing gap between haves and have-nots.”
The widening gap had reached a crisis point that required a shift in thinking toward a national health-care solution, Sewell said. “In Greeley and the rest of the country, we’re at the breaking point as more and more people are moving from the managed-care category” into the uninsured or underinsured groups, he said.
“We need a national health plan that covers everybody to some degree. Something has to happen. We are literally at the brink.”
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8341077.htm
Comment: “Political leanings” have little significance in the face overwhelming evidence that our system of funding health care is fatally flawed. The $1.79 trillion that we are spending this year is more than enough to fund comprehensive care for everyone. Objective assessment of the various funding options available inevitably leads to the conclusion that only a national health plan is capable of allocating our resources effectively, even if some political persuasions have resisted this conclusion.
It’s time to lay partisanship aside and proceed with the restructuring of health care funding. After all, it’s for our health.