Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied.
Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died.
Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose.
Everybody knows.
The overlords of the number one local monetary vacuum cleaner, aka Renown Health, are in a tizzy. They fired their eight-year CEO who was only making a penurious $2 million a year or so and nobody but us poor taxpayers are asking WTF?
Could it be that the bitter fruits of their 1985 theft of our county hospital are finally rotting in the open? I have built and continually updated a whole website about that scandal. Renown apparently remains a den of pimps and thieves. That’s the way it was born.
NevadaLabor.com is the only place on the web you can get the damning grand jury report that finally gave us an autopsy a decade after the body politic’s interests had been assassinated.
A BAD TRIP DOWN AMNESIA LANE. The Reagan administration was riding high in the 1980s, preaching the gospel of deregulation. The Nevada Legislature had established the Nevada Health Systems Agency to try to control runaway health care costs. The industry made sure their minions killed it after five years. The last thing the NHSA executive director did before he blew town was authorize the founding of Sparks Family Hospital (now Northern Nevada Medical Center).
The facts were clear. A third hospital would only increase everyone’s costs based on this valley’s population. Didn’t matter. The Nevada Legislature passed AB289 in 1987 in an attempt to reduce costs. A report to the 2005 session showed it worked. (Links with the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor. com/) Lawmakers paid off campaign contributions by killing that, too.
See a pattern?
In 2004, Nevada doctors made it impossible to bring malpractice lawsuits by circulating a bogus initiative petition supported by a huge ad campaign screaming that malpractice insurance costs were causing physicians to leave Nevada in droves. (Remember the TV spots with lines of whitecoats hitch-hiking thru the desert to California?) It worked and that’s why you no longer see ambulance-chasing lawyers hustling for malpractice cases. The initiative capped legal fees at such a low level that any settlement or court decision would not even cover costs. So lawyers chase accidents and those harmed by doctors can go suck a rock. (See “My Doctor Killed Me,” Barbwire 2-24-2008)
Which brings me to the biggest ripoff of all. With deregulation in vogue, a few guys (who yet live in infamy on a bronze plaque in the palatial Renown Regional Medical Center atrium) figured out a way to steal our county hospital.
Washoe Medical Center had always covered expenses while taking care of the community, although it sometimes did allow the Catholic Church to dictate medical procedures. And to this day, you can’t get a marijuana cigarette there to save your life from starving thru chemo cancer therapy. (Happened to a Teamsters brother of mine, now dead. Barbwire 10-9-2016, Nevada Press Assn. first place winner)
The Reaganaut hospital bandidos created a propaganda campaign screaming that the cost of providing indigent care would soon bankrupt Washoe County. The crooks controlled the financial info and thus the news flow, rushed a bill thru the legislature, greased some county commissioners, found a corrupt deputy DA who went on to become a judge and PRESTO! They scored a health care operation worth between $60 million and $120 million for just $3 million. (1985 dollars)
The deal was sold as a way to take the soon-to-go-belly-up white elephant off the backs of the taxpayers. The new Renown would cover all health care for those who could not pay. Alas and alack, the corrupt deputy DA removed that provision from the final contract so taxpayers still send a big check to Renown every month to this very day. (See the grand jury report.)
The new non-profit never reduced health care costs, the second broken promise. Instead, Renown has paid monster executive salaries and expanded the empire. Ain’t deregulation great, Ron?
And those are just the lowlights. Go to NevadaLabor.com, read it and weep. But shed no tears for the Renown octopus and the local medical hierarchy.
I hope a lot more oozes from under the tents of that encampment of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows.
GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE DEPT. Ukraine has “shown military experts that in a conventional war, the U.S. would smoke Russia.” (Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Maureen Dowd, NYTimes, 3-13- 2022) Barbwire 2-16-2022: “The United States has never lost a conventional war although Korea ended in an uneasy tie….The late Iraqi dictator (and onetime U.S. ally) Saddam Hussein was the only guy stupid enough to risk fighting us in a conventional WW2-style ground war. The U.S. military today remains the baddest buncha sonsabitches who ever got into a fight.
Czar Donaldov’s buddy Bad Vlad seems intent on re-fighting WW2 over little ole Ukraine….If he invades, not only will Ukraine rue the day it ever gave up its nukes in exchange for some vague promise of protection from the west, but the Red Army will get its ass kicked.”
SCREWED R US. Ma Bell just jacked up my cel-phone charges and now I get more dropped calls than ever. I’m a fool for sticking around. I called to see if the old bitch wanted to compete for my business. Alas and alack, I was offered a new iPhone to save a whopping THREE WHOLE DOLLARS a month. No deal. So a kid in the Philippines gave me the number of AT&T’s “Customer Loyalty Dept.” The number had been disconnected. I plan to return the favor.
ADDING INSULT TO INJURY, the kid admitted he had voted for murderous dictator Rodrigo Duterte in the last election. Guess I can’t blame him.
MaBell was recording the call.
Take care of each other and be careful out there.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail Lyrics to “Everybody Knows” by By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson.
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