University of Washington Medicine (UWM)<\/a> and VMC.\u00a0 That deal now looks set to be rushed to approval by the end of May, even though no final plan has yet been presented for review.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe VMC-UWM alliance as it has been outlined would have today\u2019s elected hospital commission delegate all power for overseeing VMC\u2019s operations to a new board whose majority would be appointed by UWM.\u00a0 UWM would not share in the profits\/losses of the institution they will soon control.\u00a0 This means the new board has neither electoral accountability nor incentives to maximize quality and efficiencies as true owners would.\u00a0 VMC\u2019s administration touts this situation as \u201cthe perfect alliance\u201d in the videos and advertisements it continues to purchase to promote a deal of which few details are available to commissioners or the public.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ramming this alliance through just months after the idea was introduced (January) and just months before an election that could swing the balance of power on the VMC hospital commission (November) that is split 3-2 on many issues – is highly questionable at best and at worst thwarts the public\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Instead people should have a chance to vote up or down whether they wish to continue taxing themselves to subsidize VMC.\u00a0 If they do not, then a merger should be pursued that would \u2013 at minimum \u2013 bring in enough funds to retire the district\u2019s bonded indebtedness for which the taxpayers are now liable.\u00a0 The district has about $320 million in debts but much more than that in assets and it could surely find a merger partner \u2013 likely even UWM \u2013 if one were sought.\u00a0 Merging with UWM would allow VMC to stay in public control while truly giving UWM incentives to integrate VMC much more fully into the UWM system than the odd alliance that is proposed today.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Public Hospital Districts (PHDs) are an anomaly in urban areas.\u00a0 They were set up in the 1940s to provide property tax subsidies in areas that didn\u2019t have a critical mass of population to support health care providers. That was the case in the sprawling area that is within VMC\u2019s taxing area in South King County in the 1940s.\u00a0 It is not the case today.\u00a0 What once was pasture and farm land is now wall to wall city. Its relatively wealthy (by state standards) inhabitants serve as a beacon to other health care providers that are trying to enter the local market.\u00a0 UWM and others will likely expand their health services within the boundaries of PHD No. 1 in the future — and wouldn\u2019t need subsidies to do so.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While the PHD\u2019s original reason for existing is gone, equally concerning is how some of the subsidy is spent today. VMC\u2019s CEO is by far the highest paid public servant in Washington. At $1.2 million annually VMC\u2019s CEO is paid over seven times Governor Gregoire\u2019s salary ($167,000) and three times President Obama\u2019s ($400,000). UWM, which is five times larger than VMC, pays its CEO $250,000 (according to the Office of Financial Management, other published sources cite $750,000 \u2013 either way paying much less than VMC for a much bigger job). With the painful cuts being made at almost all other governments, VMC\u2019s golden CEO package is clearly not the best way to use limited public resources.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Still, all of us pay our property tax subsidy to support VMC.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
All the hospitals with operations immediately surrounding VMC receive no property tax subsidy \u2013 they are non-profits.\u00a0 They include Swedish, Overlake, Highline, Virginia Mason, Franciscan, MultiCare and Providence (and Auburn Regional \u2013 which is for profit) all providing health care within 25 miles of VMC and all without demanding property tax dollars in order to carry out their work.\u00a0 All of them also provide substantial amounts of charity care \u2013 as all hospitals do.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Health care costs too much in America.\u00a0 We pay more than 18 percent of our GDP to health care while most developed countries spend half that while getting better health care outcomes.\u00a0 Our problem isn\u2019t spending too little.\u00a0 The problem is redundancy and allocation.\u00a0 Spending millions on VMC\u2019s CEO and pursuing an alliance \u2013 and not a merger \u2013 are prime illustrations on the wrong choices being made with our limited public health care dollars.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In a merger real savings could take place and layers of management could be eliminated.\u00a0 That is truly in the public interest (but not in VMC management\u2019s interest).\u00a0 Instead the deal VMC is hurtling towards will preserve relatively high cost \u201csilos\u201d with separate management and minimal cost savings.\u00a0 Is this truly the \u201cPerfect Alliance\u201d touted by VMC\u2019s advertisements?\u00a0 It might be perfect to some but it doesn\u2019t seem to be perfect if you take the public\u2019s interest into account.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There is no need to do this deal today.\u00a0 Some legislative changes are required to allow for PHDs to merge.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the time to see what the people who own VMC want to do with it, and then put together the right deal that potentially could lower taxes and increase efficiency and quality in local health care provision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Once a subsidy is started it is almost impossible to stop.\u00a0 Vested interests fight hard to continue subsidies even when the original justification is long gone.\u00a0 A decision that could last for 45 years being made by as few as three commissioners on a starkly split hospital commission right before an election is a travesty.\u00a0\u00a0 Let the people decide.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Anthony Hemstad of Kent is a Valley Medical Center commissioner.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 450,000 people living in King County Public Hospital District No. 1 (Valley Medical Center \u2013 VMC) own that hospital and all its assets. They should be allowed a chance to decide for themselves who should own\/operate VMC in the future.<\/p>\n
There has never been a vote about the form and existence of the public hospital district and one should take place now \u2013 before a 45-year deal is signed between the University of Washington Medicine (UWM) and VMC. That deal now looks set to be rushed to approval by the end of May, even though no final plan has yet been presented for review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10476"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}