Commentary
Last week, this newspaper performed a true public service with the front page story entitled “Renown Health is a powerhouse in Northern Nevada.
Is that a problem?”
The answer of course is not only yes, but hell yes!
Was the article comprehensive and hard-hitting? Alas, no.
Written by one of my old friend Jon Ralston’s journalists, Tabitha Mueller of the Nevada Independent online service, I wondered how my old friend and Tribune colleague in columny Jake Highton would have graded it. Prof. Highton’s UNR journalism classes were the toughest on campus.
No grading on the curve. If you scored a C-plus on a project, that was a victory. B and A were as rare as Trump accuracy.
The late Jake’s minions are spread far and wide. I published many of their comments when he died. (See the Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniators Hall of Flames at NevadaLabor.com/)
ALL, and I mean all, praised the old prof for being such a tough old sumbitch, the world’s hardest taskmaster who produced great journalists.
In Jake’s absence, I will assign a letter grade to Ms. Mueller’s magnum opus: C.
Pretty good journalism, but an F in Google.
Renown spun its wonderfulness to Ms. Mueller as a benevolent non-profit.
She developed the statistics to prove Renown a de facto monopoly without coming out and calling it one. Objective to a fault.
She printed that non-profit Renown barely covers expenses. While paying its top dogs multi-million dollar salaries.
I have worked in this issue since before Ms. Mueller was born. NevadaLabor.com has always been the ONLY source on the entire freakin’ Internet to publish the 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury report on how a handful of greedy county hospital executives stole a solvent county hospital. They used a Trumpian big lie, clever PR, three dumb and/or crooked county commissioners and a corrupt future judge to steal an asset worth about $120 million for…gulp…three, that’s THREE, $3 million.
The big lie was a false alarm that paying for indigent care would soon bankrupt Washoe County. They selflessly offered to form a “non-profit” and kindly take this white elephant off the county’s back. They would also lower health care costs and pay for ALL — yes, all — indigent care in perpetuity.
To this day, Washoe County hands a big check monthly to Renown for indigent care. Instead of cutting costs, they took the profits-without-a-name and devoted them to building an increasingly rapacious and expensive empire.
The corrupt future judge, the late Ed Dannon, took the honest district attorney’s office lawyer drafting the final contract off the case.
Dannon then removed the indigent care requirement from the contract.
The Renown octopus has engaged in monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. They try to sign doctors to non-competes to further pull the ladder up behind them. A group of surgeons kicked their asses in court a few years ago, but the contractual roulette continues.
The re-named Renown is indeed renowned and my candidate as poster child for everything wrong with the murderous and morally obtuse U.S. health care dinosaur.
Don’t take my word for it. Read the grand jury report for yourself, only at NevadaLabor.com/
MEA CULPA DEPT. Awhile back, I moved a small item that Renown and the UNR med school had split. I was wrongly informed. Get out the wet noodles.
LATE IN LIFE, IMMORTALITY. I thought I was onto something when I started using the nickname Quarantino to describe my anti-social and thus far Covid-free lifestyle. I have continued the monicker in order to constantly remind people that the Terminator still stalks and mutates.
Alas, my first websearch for the Q-word returned something like 188,000 hits.
In search of eternity, I decided to hit “ammotextual,” my term for the six billygoats gruff on the U.S. Extreme Court.
Nada. I may have actually invented a totally new word, a personal contribution to the ever-evolving and messy lexicon of American English.
What’s an ammotextual? A judge who worships at the cult of the gun and believes that anything non-existent in 1789 is unconstitutional.
So much for Social Security, Medicare, the FDA, the EPA and the U.S. Air Force.
It’s the cowboy way. Yahoo.
OUT OF THE CLOSET. I have long been retained by some of the most prestigious PR accounts in the country. I have proven so good at it that no one has ever figured out who was calling the shots.
You’ve never heard of the National Liver Advisory Board, right? It’s an organization devoted to promotion of the nutritional benefits and palatability of all types of liver. I was retained after marketing suffered a serious blow when Dr. Hannibal Lecter won an Oscar.
I am also the longtime PR consultant to the National Tort Feasors Assn.
Without tort feasors, all those ambulance chasers you see advertising would be out of business. As would some TV stations and ad agencies.
But my biggie is the granddaddy of them all, the largest trade association in the world — into which I have just inducted a Sparks company. Here’s my letter of congratulation:
“Dear (name redacted): Your conduct this day motivates me to inform you that I have the distinct privilege and high honor of inducting you into the nation’s largest professional organization: The U.S. Professional Crastinators Alliance.
“No amateur crastinators ever allowed.
“As founder and CEO, I offer my personal congratulations. And nothing else.
“We have no dues, conduct no meetings, seminars or elections.
“Our members are too busy worrying about what they didn’t worry about yesterday.
“You have proven by your exemplary conduct on this day that you are worthy of carrying forward our creed: Procrastination means never having to say you’re sorry.
“You and your company scored a major discount that could not have happened any day other than today. Crunch time. Drop-dead deadline.
“If you want to induct your superiors, I authorize you do do so whenever. I won’t get to it for awhile.
“What happened represents seminal evidence that professional crastinators know how to get things done. Eventually.
“Deadlines are for wimps. (Just ask an unbroken line of Sparks Tribune editors about the Barbwire).
“Very truly yours, Andrew Quarantino.
“ps: I will mail a signed copy whenever I get around to looking for stamps and an envelope.”
Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 55-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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