OpEd: Quality Health Care and Competitive Health Care is a Bargain; New Hospital Brings Excitement to Janesville

I have reviewed the stories that have been published about the new St. Marys-Dean Hospital venture in Janesville.....and the stories have left me wondering. Since when did competition between two health organizations for my health dollar become a bad thing?

The current hospital in Janesville is a primary advertiser of the current newspaper, so one could expect that "mysterious people" or "some people" would mysteriously critize the new hospital. Relax. It will be exciting for quality health care employees as well as patients.

I once wrote a story about a man that was undergoing brain surgery and in the midst of the surgery the man woke up. He saw the surgeon smiling over him and saying, "Relax, I'm doing the surgery for FREE". The man suddenly died.

Nothing in life is free. If I had to go to a hospital for a life saving procedure, saving a few bucks would not be my only concern. Quality and caring staff as well as cost would be.

Secondly----I have read a story about "some people" that have critized St. Mary's for exiting the Chicago market because their hospital wrote off 20 million dollars due to bad debts. I had the pleasure years ago of working in a hospital in a major metro area and handled charity care as well as bad debts. No hospital can survive if the balance of patients is so severe as the case of the Chicago hospital. Everything is paid for...by somebody. In this case there was just nobody left to transfer the cost to.

So----Janesville relax---and get excited because quality health care is on the way. Let the competition begin. That is how I see it.

And YOU?