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Ken Leighton

Ken Leighton is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

Hold on to that Fallbrook Hospital toe tag

Visduh- What is happening to Fallbrook has happened scores of times to other hospitals across the country according to specialists I have spoken with. Medicare and Medicaid only pays a fraction of ER costs, leaving the hospital to go deeper in debt with most ER visits. Many ER users are simply not ensured. It takes a lot of well trained, expensive people to keep an ER open. This is a pretty easy reality to understand. But what is even more noteworthy is that the much larger Tri-City Hospital is headed down the same path. My parents who live in Oceanside and many other people I know in the Oceanside/Carlsbad/Vista area, simply don't go to Tri-City because of its reputation and because of the superior product provided by Scripps, et al. The directors at Fallbrook did the best they could with what limited options they had. They asked for any and all proposals from other major hospital groups to come on board, but none did except for Palomar and Tri-City, and a for-profit group that turned in a proposal that was lose-lose for Fallbrook. What is most remarkable is that Nathan Kaufman who gets paid big money to help hospital districts across the country negotiate through this difficult new world of modern medicine (and who happens to live in San Diego) has been very vocal about the inevitable Major Fail of Tri-City (www.utsandiego.com/news/.../better-strategy-neede…) and has been imploring the elected Tri-City hospital directors to affiliate with a major group before it is too late. According to what Kaufman said on a TV interview show earlier this year, these directors did not even bother to contact him and pick his brain after this piece ran. Keep in mind that Kaufman was doing this as a private citizen concerned about Tri-City's march into insolvency, NOT as a prospective client. I think it is sad that the good, well-meaning people of Fallbrook are about to hitch their wagon to a larger entity that is also in deep trouble. Palomar, by the way, is also a self-standing, not-for-profit, public entity, but it has a brand new facility and for the moment looks to be in a better position than Tri-City, but I am told Palomar like Tri-City is having trouble securing bonds with fair market rates. In other words, they can not get the money they need to make the improvements they need because of the very nature of who they are. This issue is not over for Fallbrook. Or Tri-City.
— October 11, 2014 11:52 a.m.

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