Thank you for shining light on this governmental entity called the Lancaster County Hospital Authority. After hearing of Commissioner Stuckey’s comments regarding his ‘hands off approach,’ I have a few suggestions for the commissioners:

1) The hospitals are using the PEOPLE’S authority and the PEOPLE’S POWER to save money and [receive] tax reduced financing options…  Doesn’t this arrangement mean that the Commissioners should be WATCHING over their dealings to make certain that the PEOPLE’S power and authority is BENEFITING us? That the decisions that the hospitals are making are not INCREASING cost to consumers through the duplication of facilities and equipment?

2) Given the obvious placement of Hospitals in this county (Lancaster, Lititz and Ephrata; please remember that, despite assurances to the contrary, the Columbia Hospital closed their ER once LGH took over!) and the current LACK of hospitals (anything south of Willow Street and no emergency care west of Lancaster), isn’t it clear that LGH has not lived up to their promise of maintaining “the health of all Lancaster County residents”?

As you might guess, I am against the proposed national government takeover of health care, yet what do you do when LGH has clear FOR PROFIT interests guiding them rather than designated non-profit status? Why do they have for-profit ventures and create all these conflicts where patients are being directed for treatment/test to doctor owned places?

Give the +100 million surplus every year, the hospital should be working to ensure that Lancaster countians can be covered in emergency care no matter where they live in our GREAT county. (Did you know that our county is almost as large as Rhode Island?)

I go to Parochial Medical Center in Groffdale, west of New Holland. This is considered an ‘Amish practice’ in that many horse and buggy receive care there. What makes them different? It’s not ‘posh,’ but everyone that goes there pays out of their pocket—no insurance! This makes the doctors/nurses/staff sensitive that people are reaching into their wallets and to make decisions and recommendations accordingly.

A few years ago I had a physical and my doctor suggested that an EKG for a baseline would be a good thing to have done. “How much?,” I ask. “Well we do it right here and will have the results right away. It’s $35″!

I am certain the traditional practice would have you going to the hospital/outpatient center and setting an appointment where a doctor would read the results (from the technician that did the test) who would call my doctor. I would set another appointment to see my doctor to have him tell me what the other doctor said the test results said!

Let me suggest that it would cost more than $35.

I am convinced that the reason we have such runaway costs on health has more to do with issues like these and the FACT that most people don’t understand how their decisions unnecessarily drive up the cost of health care by not demanding accountability of our doctors.