By Lee Cullum, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – President Bush's guest-worker plan for immigrants has much to be said for it, but one thing cannot be overlooked. That is the burden it will impose on local hospitals unless Congress includes in this legislation funds to cover additional costs at facilities such as Parkland.
The problem is that Parkland already has a projected budget shortfall for the coming year of fifteen to twenty million dollars. These troubles flow in part from the state legislature cutting back the Children's health Insurance Program - called CHIP - which has cost Parkland $35 million, not to mention the federal mandate that residents can work only 80 hours a week, where before it was 120. This, no doubt, is better for the residents, and the patients, but it is a financial blow to Parkland.
As a result of all of this, Parkland CEO Ron Anderson has been forced to put on hold his hopes to construct a $460 million building to accommodate day surgery and a birthing center. Also in danger are the primary care clinics the hospital operates throughout the county. If they should be closed, or their services reduced, their patients would flock to the emergency rooms of Baylor, Methodist, Presbyterian and other hospitals, exacerbating the strain already felt in those quarters.
It cannot be overlooked that whatever happens at Parkland is felt by other hospitals across the region. Sick people just don't go away. They go other places for help. Somehow the bill must be paid. If it isn't the taxpayers who fund the care of the indigent, it will be patients at other institutions in the area.
The stress at Parkland has put Ron Anderson at odds with some of his board members who resist his zeal for serving the poor and insist on reductions that he deplores. He is also on a collision course with County Commissioner Jim Jackson, who has taken up where longtime County Judge from years ago Lew Sterrett left off, calling for cuts at the public facility, undermining Southwestern Medical School, which relies on Parkland as its teaching hospital. Less care for the indigent means doctors at Southwestern are forced to do less than their best. Everybody loses.
The Commissioners Court is planning a study of the situation but that may come too late to avert the coming crisis. Before long, Parkland may have no choice but to ration health care, and that is neither fair nor acceptable to Americans for any of their citizens.
Those who oppose Ron Anderson are in danger of using this battle to obscure for themselves the real issue: there is no getting away from the need for a tax increase in the hospital district. Republican commissioners will not like it. John Wiley Pricem, the lone Democrat, may or may not support it. But it is the only way to salvage medical care for the poor in this county. Maybe Congress will see the necessity of funding health care for guest workers, but that will not save Parkland from its current distress. Rescue will have to come from the taxpayers of Dallas.
Lee Cullum is a regular contributor to KERA and to the Dallas Morning News. If you have opinions or rebuttals to this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or contact us through our website at KERA.org.