On Monday December 10, 2012 Bobby Jindal effectively put a fork in the sacred cow - known as the Charity Hospital System - that developed over a more than 270 year period.

Jindal, long  a proponent of privatizing everything within view, took advantage of a recent federal reduction in Medicaid dollars to the State, as an excuse to unnecessarily turbocharge his mission.  The term is opportunistic.

Hmmm, taking advantage of a disaster as an opportunity to push through politically unpopular policy.  Where have we seen this before?  No one can forget how the State and LSU used Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to shutter the existing building when it was ready to go back into operation three weeks after the storm.

In New Orleans, as of last Monday, Jindal's privatization mission is just steps away from turning our single payer safety-net hospital over to a Louisiana Children's Medical Center [LCMC] - a non-profit corporation- effectively transforming a sacred cow into a cash cow to be milked by a non-transparent and non-accountable entity as stated in an MOU signed by:  "LSU Board of Supervisors, Louisiana Children’s Medical Center and others relating to the future operation of the Interim Louisiana Hospital and, upon its completion, the new University Medical Center in New Orleans."

The MOU specifically states:

Jindal's rubber-stampers, otherwise known as the LSU Board of Supervisors, will bless this MOU [and two other Charity System hospitals] at a special meeting December 14, 2012 at 10:00 am.

Another interesting paragraph in the MOU gives us over here at SaveCharityHospital.com pause.

Is this a sign that Mr. Jindal will be obligated to accept the Federal Medicaid Reimbursement?  If so, will the real Mr. Jindal please stand up?

Meanwhile... back at the UMC construction site.... with patients and residents farmed out to other private providers and institutions, what the heck is that suburban monstrosity going up in Lower MidCity for? 

Perhaps the best answer to date lies with LSU Health Science Center Chancellor Larry Hollier - the only Charity Hospital official not fired or demoted by the Governor; or ....retired.  WWLTV reported on June 10th, 2011 in the following interview:

""They're missing the point," said Larry Hollier, MD, chancellor of the LSU Health Science Center. "This is not trying to build a community hospital. This is trying to build a destination hospital like UAB in Birmingham, like MD Anderson in Houston.""

A destination Hospital that will be leased to a private corporation with no accountability to report on their promise that any surpluses resulting from this Private Public Partnership will be invested back into the UMC Hospital.

Is BioDistrict New Orleans - ostensibly a boundary line with a little more than $12 000 dollars in it's bank account - encompassing 1500 acres of mostly MidCity, Gert Town and Zion City - ready to compete with Houston and Birmingham?  More than one article suggests that New Orleans may have already missed that opportunity boat.

Tight State Funds Hamper Development of New Orleans

Perhaps more clarity surrounding the plethora of questions circulating in the mediasphere will be answered this Thursday, December 13 when all eyes will be on what may be one of the last public meetings of the UMCMC board if this MOU is passed as it is currently written.

Agenda pending.

Details:
3PM
LSU Health Sciences CenterLions Clinic Building,
2020 Gravier Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
Isadore Cohn Student Learning Center,
6th Floor.

Follow us on twitter
@charityhospital

LSU's Decision to cut the charity out of the 7 Charity Hospitals in Southern Louisiana, instigated at the behest of the Governor to find a way to absorb Federal cuts to medicaid spending in Louisiana, speaks volumes about LSU's administrators disrespect for human life.  The Governor, for what appears to be political reasons, chose not to accept the Federal medicaid reinbursement that was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act.  This will hundreds of thousands uninsured, with nowhere to go.

Such a shame!  LSU physicians have a proven track record of offering some of the world's best and most advanced heathcare to all of their patients in Louisiana - regardless of class, race or economic situation.  Indeed, many insured people have communicated to SaveCharityHospital.com that they would go nowhere else.  Doctors have offered their services with compassion and concern to all who enter any of the 10 State-run Charity Hospitals.

Medical students have traditionally come to New Orleans to study at Charity Hospital due to the challenging conditions, a complicated genetic mix and to participate in the most advanced medical scientific research in the country.  It seems that LSU is now mostly concerned with capitalizing on students to increase profit margins while eliminating services and programs for patients. Would potential students choose to study at LSU if they had to do their residencies at private hospitals under public/private partnerships with other hospitals. That question needs to be asked.  The national agency that accredits graduate medical education programs is pressing LSU officials for information on their plans to revamp physician training programs.

Compassion does not seem to imbibe to administrators and some legislators that dance to the Machiavellian beat of the Governor's drum.

That the decision to cut funding for the thousands of indigent, working poor and uninsured was implemented without first creating a system to absorb such patients means that many in Louisiana could very well die.  This is not hyperbole.  Yet this was predictable.

The decision to privatize the Charity system - a single payer system thats biggest flaw was a lack of transparency and accountability - was made well before Katrina.

Brad Ott, is an expert in heathcare and, in particular, the Charity Hospital system and has revived Advocates for Louisiana Public Healthcare [ALPH] in the wake of the latest cuts.   His thesis is titled "The Closure of New Orleans' Charity Hospital After Hurricane Katrina: A Case of Disaster Capitalism"

Ott points out that there are options to closing funding gaps without eviscerating charity care from the LSU system. 
The funding options include redirecting funds currently in the private schemes Bayou Health and the Louisiana Behavioral Health Partnership to public safety net LSU and community hospitals and clinics: and reallocation of DSH funds from provide providers to LSU and rural hospitals.

An old trick that right-wing conservatives use in order to eliminate government programs - that many people around the world know well - is to:   Intentionally starve the system to create it's collapse and then use it's collapse to show that it doesn't work and we must privatize it.  It seems that the people of Louisiana have fallen prey to this trick.

We are presented with this false choice by Governor Jindal and the LSU board of supervisors.  While the State had already cut the Charity system to the bone then,  because of  a federal $859 Million dollar cut to Louisiana's medicaid program, Governor Bobby Jindal decided to privatize the whole system.

Who wins and who loses under this sort of system?  Without transparency and accountability, what is to stop private insurance companies and/or hospitals from continuing to game the system?  The idea of forking over truckloads of public money to such private institutions before such regulations or partnerships are in place is distressing at best.

If that weren't enough,  at the LSU Health HCE Fall Quarterly Meeting October 16th, 2012, keynote speaker Dr. Opelka, emphasized that heathcare's future is no longer about bricks and mortar. Yet that's all we heard from LSU about why they had to build a Taj-Ma-Hospital in Lower MidCity on top of a now razed historic neighborhood and community. As well, at some point in the near future, New Orleans City Council will meet to turn over of Pershing Place (Nanny Goat Park) - our public park where the doughboy statue stands as a monument to WWI soldiers - to the State to increase land for a hospital that may be 100 beds at best.   Why on earth does the State need MORE land and why on earth would the Mayor and City Council allow it? Will that take more of the street grid? When the I-10 is dismantled -  (as planned) - think of the traffic nightmare.

So what can you do?

Sign this petition to the Lousiana Division of Administration & Department of Health and Hospitals to keep Southeast Louisiana Mental Hospital Open

 LSU's Taj-Ma-Hospital is looking more and more like Taj-Ma-Impossible these days.