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Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Mercy’s neighbor Michael Reese closed years ago after the south side German Jewish community that established it and sustained it for 100 years melted away. Before the civil rights act passed in 1965, it was difficult for Jewish or Catholic doctors to obtain staff privileges at the Waspy type hospitals like Pres-St Luke, Wesley, Passavant, or Evanston. The people who used to support Reese go to Evanston and Northwestern now where their doctors practice. The Irish and Italian locals who sustained Mercy for 100 years got educated, got rich, and now they go to Evanston and Northwestern too. At one… Read more »
Very interesting. Thanks.
The wealthy love to support Lurie Childrens’ too. Lurie’s wouldn’t exist without support from the wealthy in the community. It would shut down because it has too many medicaid patients, and not enough private insurance. And
And that’s the bigger problem these days: Modern hospitals cannot survive on medicaid, but reimbursement rates can’t go up either because medicaid is already a 1/4 of the state’s budget. And the state is always billions behind on those payments too.
The truth is that a lot of hospitals will shut down. And the poor will receive no care at all. For ‘equity’.
Was there ever going to be any other outcome? Underutilized Mercy Hospital is losing money treating poor and uninsured patients and asks to switch to a more financially stable outpatient care center. State regulators deny their request. Mercy goes over the head of state regulators to federal bankruptcy court, and closes down instead. Now the community is left with no hospital or outpatient center. Did this same scenario not play out a year ago with a hospital in the western suburbs? This all political. There is a bill pending out there in IL which prevents any hospital from shutting down… Read more »
Complete insanity to pass a law that a business can’t go out of business. How exactly do you even enforce that? Will employees be forced to work for no pay?
The permanent victim class uses the hospital like a doctors office. They are too lazy to go for preventative care even though it’s free with Medicaid. They continue to make poor lifestyle choices and are being infected with covid because they refuse to socially distance , loot, burn, carjack, have house parties, drink and smoke in every park and on and on. And then because they refuse to work and ave no insurance they stick the taxpayers with millions upon millions for their stupid shooting medical costs. That’s why the hospital closed.
Cynically put, yes, this is mostly true. The hospital can’t stay open with only medicaid and self-pay aka no pays, primarily due to overuse for primary care conditions and expensive lifestyle based behaviors. In some sense, you can say that the community destroyed the only hospital in the area because they failed to support it financially.