This community opinion was contributed by George Fendler. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. Lea este artículo en español aquí.
Selling our only hospital is a really bad idea!
I’m looking for the reason that the Healthcare Board and Management at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital still wants to sell. Especially in light of the recent negative publicity about Insight Healthcare.
If you have been following this situation for the last few years, you are aware that the local hospital is having growing pains and the management is trying to implement a solution that is extreme to say the least. The San Benito Healthcare District Board (SBHCD) wants to sell the county’s entire healthcare system to someone else. That’s how they can get it out of their hair.
They (SBHCD) put Measure X on the ballot last November asking for permission to sell because that is required by law if they are selling a large amount of public assets.
The County Board of Supervisors (BOS), realized that if the healthcare board sold the hospital, the county would still be required to provide healthcare as the “provider of last resort”. The BOS, seeing that the healthcare board had clearly run out of ideas on how they would be able to run the system, put together a plan to form a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) to assist the healthcare board. The BOS put Measure B on the ballot. Measure B was an advisory measure designed to determine how the residents of the county felt about the BOS helping the SBHCD.
Measure B passed by nearly 3/4 of the voters indicating they want to have the BOS and the SBHCD form a JPA to run the hospital. Measure X also passed, but by a very slim 3% margin. The wording on Measure X was fatally flawed. It said “without raising taxes….provide beaucoup medical services….sell the hospital to Insight Healthcare or some other qualified buyer.” [This is a paraphrased quote].
The fact that it says it won’t raise taxes and keep providing services would automatically trigger a “yes” vote to someone who didn’t realize what was actually happening. That is what I have been focusing on ever since I saw the wording of Measure X.
It just occurred to me that this might not be the most deceiving part of that measure. The fact that they can sell it to some other qualified buyer is telling. All the discussion has been centered around selling to Insight. Insight is an actual for-profit corporation in Flint, MI. They even had their bank send a letter saying that they could probably handle this financially. But, when you look into what is actually happening. Insight Healthcare has setup a not-for-profit corporation in California that will actually be the buyer! A bank letter from Insight’s Michigan bank would have nothing to do with a sale to their brand new 501(c)(3) California corporation. The not-for-profit California corporation has no credit history. In order to have some sort of financial justification for selling to them they should provide a document called a “Commercial Letter of Credit” from the bank that the not-for-profit corporation is using. Such an instrument would guarantee that the SBHCD would get paid even if the venture failed. This is important because Insight has recently had 3 bankruptcies for properties that they were trying to “rescue” on the east coast.
I believe that WE, THE PEOPLE of San Benito County deserve this level of protection. If we can’t get the SBHCD Board to come to their senses and implement what the people of the county clearly want, the very least that they need to do is require a Commercial Letter of Credit from the actual buyer’s bank.
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