DL Open Thread: Saturday, November 23, 2024

Hospital Lobbyists Try To Kill Diamond State Cost Review Board.  Carney said he supports it–but will he appoint the members?:

With about two months until a new executive administration takes over in the First State, Delaware Healthcare Association president and CEO Brian Frazee penned a letter Wednesday urging term-limited Gov. John Carney to defer making appointments to the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board.

The controversial proposal to establish an oversight body with hopes to control Delaware’s rising health care costs became law June 13, one month after the Delaware Healthcare Association changed its opposing stance on the bill to neutral once compromises were struck between hospital chiefs and Democratic leaders.

Because ChristianaCare has gone to court to stop the legislation they allegedly compromised on. No shock that lobbyists ‘compromise’, then go back to kill the compromise they agreed to.  There’s more:

Throughout the bill’s legislative journey, the Delaware Healthcare Association represented the interests of hospitals such as ChristianaCare, Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare and TidalHealth Nanticoke.

In addition to Mr. Frazee, those facilities’ leaders spoke out against the bill during its path in the General Assembly because of it being a politically controlled board charged with overseeing and approving hospitals’ annual budgets. Though a compromise was struck, leaders were steadfast in their uneasiness toward certain aspects of the bill.

Gov. Carney praised the measure for its ability to potentially decrease health care spending in the state.

“Rising health care costs are having a significant impact on Delaware families and state taxpayers,” Gov. Carney said after the bill was passed May 21. “House Bill 350 will help lower the growth of health care costs in our state, while making sure we’re protecting health care quality and access.”

BTW, Dr. Bryan Haimes, one of the two ChristianaCare candidates in the SD 5 race, either doesn’t understand, or misrepresents, the legislation:

(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.

Uh, doctor?  The bill doesn’t do that:

The amendment included the agreed-upon compromises between stakeholders, which included requiring the board to have geographical equity in the state, clarifying the financial information submitted by hospitals and replacing a controversial Medicare reference pricing clause with a relaxed provision based on core consumer price index.

Regardless of how this turns out, I at least think that candidates who are carrying water for Christiana Care should be kept as far away from the General Assembly as possible.  Especially now.

Meta Vs. ‘Pig-Butchering’.  Yet another scam born out of social media:

Meta said Thursday that it removed more than 2 million accounts this year that sought to trick internet users around the world into forking over their money in fake investment schemes, part of a rise in criminal activity across the web.

The accounts are linked to so-called pig butchering schemes, in which criminal organizations make up fake personas — often posting as attractive single people or trusted public figures — to win the confidence of users, eventually persuading these contacts to fork over money for nonexistent investments.

“Every day, criminals target people across the world through text messaging, dating apps, social media and email in so-called ‘pig-butchering’ schemes that try to con them into scam investments,” the company said in a press release.

The scam centers running “pig-butchering” schemes took off in Asia during the covid-19 pandemic, often recruiting their workers with “too-good-to-be-true job postings” on local job boards and then forcing them to work as online scammers under the threat of physical abuse, according to Meta’s report.