COMMENT 322293
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2012-09-20 02:13 PM |
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MONOPOLIES are never good for the consumer. Cottage is no exception. Owning every hospital, and the rehab insitute will drive insurance premiums up and service levels down. It is textbook economics.. The Attorney General should try to break it up or carve off some of the pieces. You think health care and health insurance is expensive now, just wait.. you ain't seen nothing yet.
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COMMENT 322303
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2012-09-20 02:28 PM |
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Fire the board of directors and start over. Cottage owns 5 or 6 helicopters that aren't on the books.
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COMMENT 322307P
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2012-09-20 02:35 PM |
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Really? Where do they fly them, and who flies in them? Tell us more.... Kinda hard to hide 5 or 6 helos, unless wait... are they painted to look like County Fire? Hmm...that would explain a lot.
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DILLYDALLY
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2012-09-20 02:47 PM |
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Competition is good. Plain and simple, as long as we are talking about a free market commodity. How many small towns in this country do not have demand for 2 hospitals (SB does have demand for at least 2, but that does not prevent collusion and other anti competitive practices)? How many people would like a for profit police department, or fire station. You could buy police and fire insurance and if you could afford cadillac plans your first responders would show up quickly and be well trained. If not, too bad. Make healthcare a public utility. History books will see it as an embarrassment that the any developed nation did not provide healthcare as a human right.
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COMMENT 322328
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2012-09-20 03:15 PM |
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We seem to have a common theme in our lovely city; monopoly. We have it with Cottage Health Systems, we have it with movie theaters. Now, I'd much rather have a theatre monopoly than a health care monopoly, but I'm just practical that way. There's some great people at Cottage, but it's not right that they're the only option in town and whether they ended up this way through luck or strategy isn't important. This should have been addressed 10 years ago.
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COMMENT 322351P
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2012-09-20 03:41 PM |
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Hospitals couldn't make it without combining or selling or merging with Cottage. See Rehab Institute, which contemplated and planned for it for years. Decreased reimbursements would not keep them running. Better a monopoly than no hospital or services.
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COMMENT 322385
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2012-09-20 04:41 PM |
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People who are complainIng about the "monopy" that Cottages enjoys miss the bigger point: we are lucky to have a locally operated hospital in our town, managed by people who send their kids to your neighborhood school, shop in your local supermarket, and go see shows at the county bowl. Changes are coming to the healthcare industry FAST and, if we're not careful, some day in the not to distant future we could find our hospital is no longer "ours" but instead is managed by bean counters in tall office buildings far away, like LA or the Bay area, instead of by your neighbors. Then who will you complain to?
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COMMENT 322389P
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2012-09-20 04:45 PM |
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Absolutely, 293! Monopoly here in SB.
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COMMENT 322418P
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2012-09-20 05:24 PM |
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I'm with 385 (as well as a comment over on The Independent, about 'you try managing health care when 50% of the population is indigent and you can't turn them away.') They've been a pretty good provider so far, and haven't gouged us nearly as badly as many other small to medium sized town hospitals. I'd prefer competition, but that's not always possible. Locally run and managed is generally better than something owned and run from far away (the SPNP being the obvious exception).
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COMMENT 322328
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2012-09-20 05:50 PM |
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I don't think anyone is saying Cottage is a bad provider. But rather, we should have a choice in town and the fact that we don't isn't really a good thing for us. Yeah, it's great that Cottage execs are local, but the best interest of the people may be competition. People certainly seem to have wanted that when they took over for St. Francis, etc. Nobody is saying Cottage isn't good for our community, and certainly there are pluses that go along with them being here. I think the people who are talking about the dangers of monopoly though are right. We need choices in healthcare, even when the healthcare here is better than some other places, that doesn't change what is better for our community, and that's choice.
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COMMENT 322495
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2012-09-21 06:27 AM |
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We did have a choice in town, St. Francis, until it went under. It seems the only hospital that stepped up to the plate to buy St. Francis was Cottage. How is that unfair?
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COMMENT 322307P
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2012-09-21 11:51 AM |
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You can always scrape together the half billion dollars it would take to start your own hospital and hire qualified staff. No problem, interest rates are cheap, and there's no controversy or risk about the future of health care and how hospitals will be paid. [sarcasm off]
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COMMENT 322695
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2012-09-21 12:21 PM |
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Am I really hearing people here say competition and capitalism is good? Call a doctor.
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COMMENT 322697
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2012-09-21 12:30 PM |
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322418P: I think the fact that Kamala Harris is investigating Cottage indicates there's a high likelihood that they have been gouging more than many other small and medium sized town hospitals. Do you have some reason to belive otherwise?
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