The closing of the Belhaven Hospital: A product of socialism | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Belhaven Hospital is closed, locked and being stripped of everything anyone may use to operate a hospital. Vidant the owner of the hospital business, also known as University Health Systems, presented the public with a reason. To paraphrase, they said "The government will not give us enough money to keep it open." They were referring to anticipated reduced payments for Medicare caused by the State of North Carolina refusing to expand Medicare to include all uninsured.

    Long before The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obama Care, the Federal Government controlled our socialized medical system. As with all government programs, medicine was mis-managed to the point the federal budget was threatened. Money was the problem. Socialized medicine was giving everything to everyone. This included patients, doctors, drug companies and medial system employees. Continued growth was as big a threat to the economy as the housing bubble. Some experts say expenses were growing at more than 15 percent per year. Costs would have doubled every six years. Obama Care attempts to shift cost from the Federal Government to the individual and the states. Medicaid expansion shifts costs to the states. The carrot in Medicaid expansion is the Federal Government wants the states to believe the Feds are going to pay for everything. A free lunch. The lunch will be free until most of the states agree to Medicaid expansion, then the Feds will stop paying.

    Back to those US Constitution purists. The Constitution does not make medical care in any form a right. Liberals and socialists have convinced an entire generation that every citizen has a right to free health care. Those who refuse to work have the same rights as those who do work. This entire concept violates everything the founding fathers stood for.

    Another socialistic idea is sweeping the country. Everyone has a right to food, whether they work or not. People are encouraged to take food to food banks for those who do no have food. This idea is very popular, even in this country which is still the most prosperous on earth. We have an abundance of fertile farm land, a high percentage of the population is obese, we import labor, and still people are supposedly hungry. Whether it be food, health care, housing or whatever we have progressives arguing that each person has a right to these things, paid for by someone else (i.e., the government).

    The Belhaven Hospital is not open because the terms of the Department of Justice mediation agreement were not met by the July 1, 2014 deadline. Having said that, this is a murky situation with abundant allegations being make by both Vidant and those who are trying to reopen the hospital.

    It looks to this writer like settling disagreements among the parties dragged on unreasonably and were delayed to the point the July 1 deadline could not be met. Once the deadline could not be met, The Pantego Creek LLC, the owner of the hospital property, announced they would not allow the hospital to open. Vidant deeded their rights to the real property back to the Pantego Creek LLC on day after the expiration of the mediation agreement.

    To some, the behavior of the Pantego Creek LLC is bizarre at best. Some people claim the LLC is a private corporation and can do whatever they like. But, the LLC is governed via special treatment by the IRS. They are a non profit. They claim they exist for the sole purpose of providing medical care to the Belhaven area. But, they refuse to cooperate to have a hospital in Belhaven, in effect not providing hospital medical care.

    The future is hazy. The NAACP and the Town of Belhaven along with many supporters believe they were duped by the tag team consisting of Vidant and The Pantego Creek LLC. The Town and The NAACP and their supporters either are or have filed complaints with the Justice Department, Civil Rights Division. They believe their original complaints that led to the federal mediation are still valid along with accusations of collusion and bad faith to close the hospital on the part of the Pantego Creek LLC and Vidant.

    If the Town of Belhaven, the NAACP and the various supporters are successful, as much as another year may be required before a final decision is rendered by the courts as to the future of the hospital. This group that wants a hospital operating in Belhaven is asking for citizens to contact their Federal House of Representative members, Senators and the US Justice Department to complain about the closing. A lot of the contact information for making telephone calls and writing letters is available in the local telephone directory. Additional information can be obtained from the Town of Belhaven.

    In order to provide emergency transportation services, Beaufort County is spending an additional 15,000 dollars per month to provide additional emergency transportation services in eastern Beaufort County. Vidant is being granted temporary authority to transport patients from the 24 hour doctors' offices in Belhaven to the Beaufort County Hospital and Greenville Hospitals. Vidant's transport offer is only good for 30 days.

    Strategic mistakes made by Beaufort County and activist groups in Washington, NC have contributed to this situation. Had the Beaufort County Commissioners not given the Beaufort County Hospital to Vidant, also known as University Health Systems, the Belhaven Hospital would be open today. Vidant was attempting to get control of Belhaven while they were negotiating with Beaufort County. Vidant refused to enter into an agreement with the Belhaven Hospital until the deal with Beaufort County was signed.

    Vidant's reason for wanting control of eastern North Carolina hospitals seems to some to be to provide a feeder system to the Greenville Hospital. That is where they make the big money, doing major surgery. Patients at Greenville are "one hundred thousand dollar patients." Patients at the outlying hospitals like Beaufort and Belhaven are less than "ten thousand dollar patients" to Vidant's bottom line.

    The big money beast in Greenville has to be fed. The overhead cost in a hospital like Greenville is high whether you have surgeries and procedures lined up at the door or not. Referrals are the name of the game. Under Medicare/Medicaid law hospitals cannot legally pay for referrals. There are strong laws about paying for referrals, even in indirect ways. So, the current system provides providers like Vidant a strong incentive to control as much of their market area as possible. They benefit if every medical provider or doctor is a Vidant employee. This is how they could control the flow of patients without violating the referral laws. That is the advantage in owning all those doctors practices.

    Without control of the Beaufort County Hospital, the Belhaven Hospital is useless to Vidant. You see it is not about the glory of providing medical care, it is about the glory of helping get "one hundred thousand dollar patients."

    Using the argument about controlling the market area, having both hospitals and also controlling the Dare County Hospitals made the small community hospital in Belhaven useless to Vidant. They purchased the doctors practices in Belhaven. All those people were going to wind up in a Vidant facility any way. Closing Belhaven Hospital does not seem to be about service as much as it seems to be about controlling market area.

    Now that we have a full dose of this kind of expensive socialized medicine and are under the total control of our government bureaucrats we only have one question to ask our selves: How much would medical care cost if all those highly paid people with guaranteed incomes had to compete for our medical business in a free market like say, the fast food business operates in? We could get affordable care in our community because of price competition, not price controls.

    The fundamental problem with health care these days, and in Beaufort County in particular is that we have no real choice. The lack of competition leaves us at the mercy of a single provider who is not accountable to the people being served. Until that changes it does not look promising for patients or our community.

    In a sense Vidant can't be blamed for the position it has been put in. But in a much larger sense the system is corrupt. Competition is the answer to this corrupt system.

poll#52
Which was a better expense for Beaufort County taxpayers' 2 million dollars?
91.07%   Loan it to Belhaven government, as a first mortgage, to help them keep their hospital open.
6.43%   Give it to consultants to plan a Southwest County jail with no financing in place.
2.5%   Find another overpaid Economic Developer, who won't move to Beaufort County after he gets the job.
280 total vote(s)     Voting has Ended!

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