Marathon Pundit: ILL-inois: Hospital will not take new patients until deadbeat state pays up

Monday, June 03, 2013

ILL-inois: Hospital will not take new patients until deadbeat state pays up

Marathon Pundit ancestral
home in Roseland

ILL-inois is getting sicker. And the most vulnerable, the ones liberal Democrats claim to care for the most, are the ones who will suffer.

Oh, as a tyke, I was treated at Roseland Hospital, which was near my first home on Chicago's South Side.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Roseland Community Hospital is threatening to stop taking new patients on Wednesday unless the state pays money the hospital says it is owed.

Gov. Pat Quinn's office said the state has advanced all of this year's payments to the Far South Side hospital and has tried working with Roseland to create a plan to make better use of any future state funding, a spokeswoman said.

But at a news conference Monday, hospital administrators said that the state owes $6 million for the hospital's adolescent behavioral health unit, a 28-bed facility for children 10 to 17.

For what it's worth, Quinn spokeswoman says the state doesn't owe $6 million to Roseland.

With the failure of Quinn's fellow Democrats in the General Assembly to pass pension reform--Illinois' pension debt grows by $17 million a day--expect to see more stories like this one.

To ILL-nois, a measly $6 million bill is a pittance, I suppose.

But when ObamaCare kicks in next year, all of our health care problems will vanish, right?

UPDATE June 4:

Well, the story may not be accurate.

Again, from the Tribune:

On the brink of closure, Roseland Community Hospital said President and Chief Executive Dian Powell resigned Tuesday, a day after she inaccurately blamed the hospital's financial insolvency on missing payments from the state.

Powell on Monday said the hospital could be forced to close to new patients on Wednesday because the state hadn't paid $6 million it promised for development and operation of an adolescent behavioral health unit that opened in 2011.

A day later, the hospital said her statement was inaccurate. Instead, it said, the state issued an advance supplemental payment of $958,240 to help keep Roseland afloat amid mounting debt.