Our El Paso county hospital wants to be known as University Medical Center of El Paso. They seem to have forgotten that their purpose is to provide medical care at taxpayer expense to citizens in the county that cannot afford medical care elsewhere.
A few years ago the county hospital chief executive officer was among the leaders of a movement to get the voters to go into debt to build a children’s hospital. They convinced the voters that this was a good plan. Instead of starting with a modest facility and then growing it in size and scope if they could make the project financially viable, they built a wonderful multi-story facility that cannot pay it’s bills.
There is a great deal of confusion among the voters about who should pay for what. The county hospital financial statements claim that the county hospital makes over $9 million dollars profit each year at the expense of the children’s hospital. That might be true if the children’s hospital could pay it’s bills. The county hospital charges the children’s hospital for rent even when the voters paid for the new hospital through bonds.
My understanding is that while the children’s hospital has a separate hospital license it is owned by the county hospital. Some people think that the current political situation is part of a plan for the county hospital chief executive to take control of the children’s hospital. Together or separate it appears that neither one makes a profit and the taxpayers have to foot the bill.
Getting worse
The situation is going to get worse. Recently Texas Tech University announced plans to build a new teaching hospital on the west side of El Paso. They did not ask the county hospital people to run the new hospital for them. In fact they asked a publically owned hospital company to operate the hospital for them. This is the same group that openly opposed the creation of the new taxpayer funded children’s hospital saying that they already had such a facility in El Paso and that there was not sufficient demand for another, especially a big one.
We now have an open split between Texas Tech which has been operating out of the county hospital and our county hospital district. Look for more activity to move to the teaching hospital and away from the county hospital.
It seems that our county hospital chief executive is not getting along well with others. This is costing us money.
Now the situation has reached the point where the county hospital district wants permission to borrow $60 million through tax anticipation notes. In other words they want to borrow money on future tax revenue. In the private sector they call this a “payday loan”.
Payday loans are expensive. We should stay away from them.
We need management at the hospital district that does not drive us further to the poor house.
What should we do?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
The voters voted FOR the children’s hospital (I didn’t. ). The voters did not get a chance to vote on the ballpark. Same results. We will be paying for both.
LikeLike
It appears that Childrens and Woody World are the new way we do business here where we pay rent for what we built. The Vampire Economy invented by the Shaplites for our benrfit.
LikeLike
Let’s be fair. These problems are frequently blamed on Shaplites (code word for Democrats), yet many of the puppeteers and beneficiaries of local government spending are staunch Republicans. People of all political persuasions are at the trough and contributing to the problems.
LikeLike
Good point. Call it the “trough economy” with Hunt and Foster being the biggest pigs at the trough.
LikeLike
El Paso politics does not break down into easy labels of Republican or Democrat. Many Caballero/Shapleigh allies (Byrd, Escobar, Ortega, O’Rourk, Rodriguez) are Democrats but support crony capitalism along with some local Republicans. Some politicians and individuals identified with both parties are opposed to crony capitalism. I think there will be more libertarians appear locally as a result of what city and county governing officials have done the last 10 years. Libertarians oppose crony capitalism.
LikeLike
All the bad decisions being made around us boil down to one thing: greed. Greed for both money and power.
We have public officials committing tens of millions of dollars to build personal empires to protect their own salaries and personal contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars annually; or to fund deals that benefit their friends and patrons.
So where does this leave us? What we now have is a plutocracy or oligarchy.
That’s how the ballpark process and “vote” got rigged to benefit a for-profit business owned by wealthy individuals.
That’s how you end up with EPISD open enrollment, which benefits developers, not taxpayers.
That’s how you end up with a top city employee sitting at home, drawing more than four times the average El Paso household income.
That’s how pension qualifications get manipulated to guarantee that certain individuals received taxpayer-funded retirement income.
That’s how the city manager can neglect her fiduciary responsibility hours before leaving office (she, too, is still being paid, mind you) and commit the city to a deal that pays one of her friends for not working for basically a year.
That’s how a disrespectful city manager goes from one government job right into another, thanks I would suspect to the state connections of those she helped while city manager.
That’s how and why senseless projects like the airport “gateway” advertising project are undertaken and pushed through as no-bid contracts.
That’s why police are spread thin to accommodate the security needs of the for-profit ball club.
That’s why public boards are stacked incestuously with self-serving plutocrats, some of whom are on multiple boards.
That’s why you have now tens of millions of dollars committed to a low-capacity trolley system on top of the significant investment in the bus system which runs those same routes.
And that’s why you have two incompetent, irresponsible, highly paid hospital execs engaged in a costly turf war funded by you and me.
It’s not their money. They just spend it. Accountability with personal financial consequences is not part of the equation.
That’s the ugly truth. Few seem to care. It’s business as usual.
Welcome to the plutarchy.
LikeLike
Excellent comment!
Readers should send it to the mayor and council.
Brutus
LikeLike
I had a conversation with a Sun Metro bus driver this morning. The drivers used to provide the shuttle to the baseball game are being paid overtime. I wonder what the cost per hour including fuel, wear and tear, equipment costs and wages are just for the game shuttles. That is just Sun Metro, we also have to pay the police department for directing traffic.
I also had a chat with an employee in the Mills building and Mr. Foster’s parking lot fills up during the games; that’s $10 a vehicle. Is it really good for the City as a whole to subsidize the projects of influential individuals who end up making big profits?
With all this business activity you would think homeowners would be paying less in taxes.
LikeLike
Thank you for the reference to the bus system. (The trolley as I understand it is state funds??). How much is being invested in the snazzy Brio system and for how many expected new riders? Constructing the heavy-duty bus stops apparently needed has completely disrupted traffic on Mesa for a year now. But there is already a bus system running on Mesa. How many more people will use the new buses because they are faster? I lived in Madrid for some years and used buses and subway all the time, never drove in the city – but it was a compact city and the buses and trains came along every five minutes. El Paso sprawls. I’d have to drive five miles to get to the west side transit center and park, and then take the bus. In the same amount of time I can be at my destination. The chances I will take the bus are very slim. Is this the main achievement of Ms. Deputy City Manager? Did anyone else note that she also receives $350 a month for automobile expenses (no buses for her!)
LikeLike
Even most private sector businesses have eliminated auto allowances for managers, but not our local government. Insane! It’s ironic that Shang was supposedly the advocate for spiffy public transportation, but we pay for her personal car.
LikeLike
And we continue auto allowance even though she will not be conducting city business.
Brutus
LikeLike
As I understand yesterday’s events, Ms. Shang was spared being fired by her friend, Ms. Wilson’s arranging that she be placed on paid leave (and yes, undoubtedly continuing her auto allowance, her health care, etc) for six months and a couple weeks on “special projecs,” whatever they are, followed by paid vacation to get her to a pension. Either Ms. Shang was to be fired for cause, in which case a contract that ensured she would get six months severance was criminallly stupid, or she was not being fired for cause – maybe some member of council was annoyed by her? – and the paid leave served as coverup for Shang being removed from Council view. Reporting in El Diario suggests that she had fouled up projects involving some $14.2 million in federal subsidies. If true, for this she gets paid leave and a pension?
And Representative Noe is satisfied. All details must be kept secret because this is a “personnel matter.” Bovine excrement as Hightower would say. It is one more piece of the huge corrupt pie known as El Paso City Government.
LikeLike
providence childrens hospital has seasoned pediatricians and is a much better facility than this farce of a taxpayer paid for childrens hospital. cannot wait to see all the private medical pros go to the westside and all those nice woody hunt neighborhoods will not set foot in the slum for health care since they have money to pay for it. we have been fleeced once again by the cabal and no one cares
LikeLike
Warning: TTU PLFSOM is going Private Practice in the name of Education and research.
LikeLike
Translated,
Texas Tech University Paul L Foster School of Medicine is going to compete with private physicians.
Brutus
LikeLike
Private physicians will welcome the competition. Wait times in El Paso to see a physician are the highest in Texas. Physicians are overworked here. Finding a a family physician who takes new patients or Medicare is a challenging task. It takes months to get an appointment with a specialist. Texas Tech has always had clinics, but not on the west side. Seeing patients is an essential function of a medical school.
LikeLike
Okay…The private doctors in El Paso did not want the UMC Clinics expansion…How Is TTU different?
LikeLike
Some doctors do not like UMC’s clinics because they think patients won’t get the same level of care they would from their own doctor. But ask anyone who has tried to see their own doctor on a holiday, after hours, or without an appointment. That doctor (or usually the answering service) often will tell them to go to a UMC clinic or other urgent care center. Less than a third of El Pasoans have private medical insurance. With increased numbers of people having medical insurance under the Unaffordable Care Act, doctors’ waiting rooms will be even more packed than they are now. I’d like to ask those physicians who don’t like UMC’s clinics what they think then. They will be crying for UMC or TTU to take some of the patients. Competition in the medical community, as in any industry, is a good thing. Some doctors may like the competition, some may not, but the public benefits by living in a community where there is competition among doctors for patients.
LikeLike
I looked into my crystal ball. Here’s what I see. UMC and Children’s will work things out. Texas Tech will not severe its relationship with UMC because they need each other. Our taxes will continue to go up. Diabetes and border health issues are Tech Tech’s specialties and UMC has a bunch of those patients. With increasing numbers of medical students and interns, Texas Tech will have plenty to send to the new hospital and UMC both. There will be sufficient faculty to staff both hospitals. Texas Tech will do well because El Paso needs physicians and many people on the westside have private health insurance. Our taxes will continue to go up. The county will hire a county manager at over 200,000/year. And deputy managers too. They will execute golden parachute clauses patterned after the city deputy managers. Our taxes will continue to go up.
LikeLike
Warning: Taxes will go up !
LikeLike
The ballpark is built. El Pasoans love it. For those of you who were against it, get over it. No, it wasn’t done right. But it’s done. Now, we may be able to influence correct decision making regarding the Children’s Hospital vs UMC. Focus your efforts there. Focus forward and we might get something done. We need to let our County Commissioners know that under no circumstances are we willing to pay to make Valenti’s pie bigger.
LikeLike
Yes the park is built and apparently El Pasoans love it. We must hope that they continue to do so long into the future. I am a lifelong baseball fan – but I also enjoy other activities. If there is a game on at the same time something is happening at the Plaza, I am unlikely to attend the event at the Plaza unless I am able to travel well ahead of the event to search for parking. Wait until there is also a multi-purpose arena downtown!
LikeLike
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Maybe I will forgive, but I won’t forget. That’s exactly what they want us to do. Watch a game, eat a hot dog, drink a cold beer, and forget that someone is profiting at taxpayer expense. That way, they can do it again when they want a soccer stadium or whatever else they want the city to give them.
LikeLike
We’re going to repeat it only it will be the county that builds the soccer stadium, not the city, and probably with a similar scam to avoid a real yes/no vote.
LikeLike