In December the Fort Oglethorpe hospital posted a profit of nearly $150,000. That doesn’t sound like much. But consider the picture a year ago, in December 2011, when Hutcheson operated nearly $1 million in the red for the month.
The hospital has borrowed $20 million from Erlanger Health System, which took over management of the Hutcheson in May 2011. That money was used to help pay down some of Hutcheson’s debt and for basic expenses, such as paying employees.
Now the hospital wants a $25 million bond anticipation note, with a low 1-percent interest rate, to quickly pay off a $12 million Medicare debt that carries an 11-percent interest rate. That plan simply makes good business sense.
The rest of the money will be used to pay of part of the hospital’s debt to medical suppliers and to upgrade equipment at the hospital.
As for exactly how the Medicare debt accrued, that ship has sail and is well out to sea. The hospital has turned its attention to the more pressing business at hand — paying off high-interest debt as quickly as possible.
We understand those who want to stop the borrowing, who want to stop investing into what some have termed a “sinkhole” and “money pit,” and to simply let the hospital go on the auction block. They argue that we, the counties of Walker, Catoosa, and Dade, who own the hospital’s property and who have leveraged that property so Hutcheson can borrow money, will be left holding the bag. They also point out that Hutcheson has hitched itself to Erlanger, a hospital with its own set of serious financial problems. And it’s likely, they further point out, that the hospital will have to borrow even more money to pull itself out of debt. These are indeed arguments with lots of merit.
But now isn’t the time to give up, not in light of the hospital’s new bill of profit-making health.
Hospital officials predicted they would begin operating in the black within less than two years after coming under Erlanger’s aegis. They have delivered on that promise. Now it’s time for the community to deliver its full support.
If we have to pour more money into this place,I think that it would be stupid to lend it to these people at 1 percent. With the risk that they present,they could never get that kind of favorable interest rate in the open market.They will never run that place with any degree of efficiency if we hand them what is essentially "free" money. (And a 1% interest rate is as close to free as you can get). We should at least get the same juice that they pay Regions Bank or any of their trade creditors. Otherwise, it's a subsidy that screws the taxpayer.
And what rate is truly fair? I would say a minimum of 5 1/4 %. Then the taxpayers could be paid back for backstopping these people when the going got tough.Otherwise, I say let them padlock the thing or sell it to a for-profit chain and have it PAY taxes instead of consume them.
There are over 850 dedicated employees at Hutcheson. Your constant criticism of them reveals your flaws not theirs
Write this down and keep it in your pocket (and refer to it when you forget):
HMC IS NOT A JOBS PROGRAM! I don't give a toss how many people work over there. The taxpayers are gonna get screwed here and I'm saying what needs to be said.Too bad you're more worried about my physical traits (or lack thereof) to see that the real problem is that the regimes that get hired over there look at HMC as a place to come in,feather their own nest and then decamp for another job before the place goes boom.
And how can we believe the numbers that are being put out there now about a magical profit being earned-Just in time to beg a $25 million dollar wet kiss from our county government ? It's a miracle,I tell ya! I'm not buying it.
And what do you have against them being made to pay a reasonable rate of interest on money that we go out and borrow because they can't? Not one dollar of this bond will help one patient in there now. It will go to mop up the mess that the incompetent idiots that ran the place into the ground have made.I'm sick of this kind of foolishness and you should be too.
No, actually,I'm not one of those jellyfish politicians that you people think you can push around to keep that place open and feeding off the sugary teat of this county. I'm not intimidated by your name calling (I've been called worse by better than you people). I'll tell it like it is and tough for you,I guess.
If HMC can make it without handouts and subsidies,more power to them. But they need to pay their own way and stop throwing money into a blast furnace just so the "850 caring professionals" over there have a job.
I am a Catoosa voter, and I support our county hospital.
Snarky, your bitterness defeats you.