A sad story of what happens when you privatize a major non-profit hospital

Years ago, there were two big non-profit hospitals in Asheville, Mission and St. Joseph's. Many years ago, they joined forces and became one. Not necessarily bad thing for non-profits as they could work together for the common good. Being the only "big" city on Western NC, they were pretty dominant. In recent years, they began to absorb some of the businesses from smaller hospitals in other towns who either could not provide the facilities, afford the increasing expense of newer technology or had other problems. Not necessarily a good thing but again, a good non-profit should benefit, not hurt, a community. They were the go-to place for Cardiac care and had an excellent reputation.

Then the disaster began. They decided to sell out their community by selling to mega-private Hospital HCA. As a non-profit, they could not do that without approvals because of their non-profit status. With a lot of wheeler-dealing and negative input from the community, they sold Mission for $4B which was to be used for the community. I'm not sure the community ever really benefited but the sale surely did not. That's another issue.

As HCA took over, they dumped more work and lots of terminations on the staff in order to increase profitability. There were lots of complaints from doctors, nurses, staff and patients. Doctors, whose group was associated with them, left their orbit and joined that of the neighboring county's Pardee Hospital, a county-owned facility which didn't have the reputation of leadership in particular care but got awesome reviews of the quality and caring services they provided. As Pardee grew, becoming a highly rated hospital in Consumer Reports national list, so did Mission fall over the cliff.

Just today, there is an outstanding article in a local Henderson County newspaper which I would consider moderate to left in a sea of MAGAT voters trying to thread the fine line between not having enough income and telling the whole truth. It tells of what is happening now and is a warning, IMHO, what the future of privatization means. Please read it fully. It is not long but is well written and deserves recognition. The wrath of Medicare and multiple lawsuits are now in progress.

Mission faces deadline to fix deficiencies

And it's not brain fog. More like "brain smog" - polluted minds.

I heard a rumor (possibly started by me) that there will be a special "Bars of Gold" version of T's sneakers. It will

show bars of pure gold with a view of T behind them in his famous Fulton County picture and in the background will be regular steel bars and other felons.

Your punishment for buying an Apple product?

If a person is on line at a hospital out-patient check-in window and gets upset at the wait, do they send him to the

impatient clinic?

The problem with the hearts to raise money is that the season is too short. How about this alternative for year-round

"It can't happen here" - an outstanding article in Nov '23 Smithsonian Magazine - a must read!

I just read a back issue (from last November) of Smithsonian Magazine. I found the article It Can't Happen Here by Adam Hochschild. It discusses the 1930s New Deal Federal Theater Project, and Sinclair Lewis' book It Can't Happen Here in the light (or one would say dark) of 1930s Fascism. Hallie Flanagan led the project and pushed for free and low cost federally funded theater around the country particularly using Sinclair's work.

The article makes it clear that It Is Happening Here and one can see the similarities in the fight against the project and the play.

I found this (which may be an abridged version of the article). [link:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fascism-threatened-europe-play-warned-americans-federal-theater-project-180983051/|]

I wish I hadn't been given those hearts. It has really hurt me.

First, let me say that I greatly appreciated them. Totally unexpected to me and shows what wonderful people there are on D.U. that they would even give me a heart.

But it all went bad.

See, my wife of almost 53 years saw them in my posts and immediately thought they came from girlfriends. No matter how much I denied it, she immediately contacted a divorce lawyer then bet me to a pulp.

I even told her my girlfriends don't send me hearts - they prefer to give me cash and stock shares to show their appreciation. You would think she'd believe that but, no, she beat me again.

I showed her the $100K I had in my account and she wrote down the account number then told the attorney about it.

I begged her for forgiveness, but she locked me in a closet and stationed a hungry lion outside the door. I didn't even know we had a lion in the house!

I called my girlfriends and told them I was through with them and they sent money to my wife to hire a hitman. She said she wouldn't go that far as, to save money, she'd do it herself.

I reminded her that not once did I ever forget her birthday or our anniversary and she reminded me that I also never remembered what the dates were about.

I told her about the wonderful surprise 50th birthday party I planned for her and she reminded me that I made her do all the work and pay for it because I had told her it was my parent's anniversary and the cake was for a previous SuperBowl.

In any case, thanks to those of you who were so nice. and for the rest of you, my cousin Vinnie said he'd do a group hit on youse all for a decent price so please donate to my GoFundMe Hitman Fund.

Unfortunately, I think I have contacted Trumpitis and nothing I have said after the first paragraph is true.

No, honey, please, not again! Ow! Ow! Ow!

With all the hyperbole, why aren't all the maggots dead yet along with their leaders?

I mean, it's amazing. They

have been CRUSHED
are COLLAPSING
have been DEMOLISHED
have been SLAMMED
have been SMOKED OUT
have been DESTROYED
have been STUNNED
have been HUMILIATED
have been BLASTED
have been INCRIMINATED
have been ROASTED
have had the HAMMER DROPPED ON THEM
have TAKEN IT IN THE THROAT

and so many more.

MORE SYNONYMS THAN A THESAURUS!
MORE EAGERNESS THAN AN EXAGGERATION
MORE HYPE THAN A HYPERBOLE
MORE HYPERBOLE THAN AN OVERSTATEMENT
MORE OVERSTATEMENT THAN PUFFERY
MORE PUFFERY THAN AMPLIFICATION
MORE AMPLIFICATION THAN HYPE

Well, we all do it, I guess.

Want to be safe on a plane? Just become a right winger!

Well, DEI has been blamed for lots of things but never for airplane accidents and failures. That has all ended.

Worried about airline safety? Blame diversity, say deranged rightwingers