SD 5 Candidates With Christiana Care Ties Oppose Hospital Care Review Board
Among the four candidates running for the Democratic nomination to fill the soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat currently held by Kyle Evans Gay are two with ties to Christiana Care. Both oppose the Hospital Care Review Board that was legislatively established to address the costs and lack of transparency on pricing from Christiana Care. For the record, both Senators Gay and McBride voted for the bill, as did Brandywine Hundred legislators Krysta Griffith, Deb Heffernan, and Larry Lambert. Only Sean Matthews voted no.
The bill:
…creates the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board, which will be responsible for an annual review of hospital budgets and related financial information. The Board will have 7 members: 6 appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, and the Executive Director of the Delaware Healthcare Association. This Act creates a requirement that hospitals submit yearly budgets, audited financial statements, and related financial information to the Board for review. Where a hospital fails to meet the state’s budget benchmark for increases in hospital costs it is required to engage with the Board on a performance improvement plan. If the Board and the hospital cannot agree on an improvement plan or where the hospital fails to successfully implement a performance plan, the Board may require the hospital to have its future budget approved by the Board.
While Christiana Care is not technically a monopoly, it has increasingly become the only available resource for the services it provides to the vast majority of Delawareans.
(Ray) Seigfried – a former senior vice president at ChristianaCare, former health care policy instructor, and member of the state House of Representatives from 2018 to 2020 – opposed the hospital cost review board because he doesn’t believe its members would have sufficient background knowledge to oversee the complexities of hospital pricing. He also said a review board would antagonize hospitals when state officials should be partnering with them.
Still, Siegfried agreed that hospital costs should be lowered, arguing that “it is loud and clear that health care costs are way out of control.”
(Dr. Bryan) Haimes, a ChristianaCare doctor, also opposes a hospital cost review board. He said tying hospital prices to Medicare reimbursement rates would harm care. Instead, he called for the state to push for better access to primary care doctors.
While he sides with ChristianaCare in opposing a review board, Haimes also criticized Delaware’s largest hospital system over transparency, arguing that it has gone “toward a primarily business model.”
Might I point out that, without the Review Board, Christiana Care’s practices would remain hidden from view. It’s easy for apologists of Christiana Care’s lack of transparency to pound the podium about high medical costs when they simultaneously fight to keep a key reason for those high medical costs hidden from the public.
Just something for SD 5 electors to consider when voting on someone to succeed Kyle in Dover.
The last thing we need to do is add to the Corruption Caucus. I hope this somewhat nightmarish experience prompts TPTB to do away with this process and allow for a proper special election process going forward.
I have not heard a single person say that they oppose changing the special elections process. That is a good sign.
However, I pose to you (and everyone else), a problem. If the law is changed and provides a somewhat robust special elections primary process, what should the timeline for such a thing be? I will give you the case of a legislator dying in office on April 1. If the vacancy writ or whatever it’s called is issued the next day:
What date would be the deadline for candidates to file?
When would early primary voting start?
What would be the date of the primary election day?
When would early primary voting start?
What would be the date of the general special election?
I ask this because I suspect that the original idea was that from the start of the vacancy until the day after the election the people that live in the district are unrepresented. This could impair the ability of the house/senate to, for example, pass a constitutional amendment.
Of course, this is the sort of thing is what gets hashed out in legislating and deliberating, but I want to watch out for unintended consequences.
Longer process = more democracy, less representation
Shorter process = less democracy, more representation
Longer process maybe better for fresh candidates
Shorter process maybe better for the already elected
I don’t have specific answers for a timeline, but speaking for myself, I’d prefer a temporary lack of representation to being saddled with a compromised candidate until the seat is up again.
Any candidate opposing oversight of our healthcare costs should be immediately removed from consideration.
Ray Siegfried in this instance has done nothing more than what he does best, looking out for Ray. I have seen some of his recent writings on the special. He comes off as a petulant entitled child. I was Vice Chair of Ray’s District for a couple years, he attended zero meetings. Fingers too tired to click the zoom link? He never once reached out to me, I’m not sure about the Chair. Seigfried is a caricature of the south end of a north bound horse:).