The Observation Deck

According to a person who works there the flu epidemic has filled the hospital. When the City reduces the number of beds to 100 and then to 50 and then to 0 how will these people get to Lorain County?

Should there be a dedicated RTA Health Line to Lorain?

Why would they go to Lorain County? Why wouldn't they go to Fairview?

Why should Lakewood residents have to go to Fairview? We already have a hospital. Why can't a so-called not-for-profit be required to provide easy care to local citizenry especially when they don't have to pay taxes like my little business has to pay? I guess I don't get it....

I would go to Lorain County, Metro or pretty much anywhere else over Fairview - I really hate that hospital. As a hospital I'm sure it is fine, but simply driving and parking there makes me want to scream. And frankly, the more I find out about the Clinic the more inclined I am to take my business elsewhere as often as I can.

The conservatives who make the most sense to me ... I've noticed ... they have two things in common: Their conservatism is fiscal, not social. And they are parents. They've got kids in school. Kids get sick sometimes.

For example, I know a bank president who supports single payer healthcare.

It encourages me to see this--not so much because the issue at hand is healthcare, but because a conservative bank president supporting single payer healthcare is clearly thinking beyond the partisan talking points.

Tim, how do you feel about government control of healthcare? When you say, "Why can't a so-called not-for-profit be required to provide easy care to local citizenry especially when they don't have to pay taxes like my little business has to pay?" It sounds like you think the government should be able to tell the hospital where they can locate.

Of course I want Lakewood to have a hospital. And of course I know the city of Lakewood owns the building in which this one operates. As long as the Clinic pays its lease and operates the hospital for that period, what right does the government have to tell them where they can or should do business? And is this not the free market? Are they not A) pursuing efficiency through consolidation, and B) following the money?

Michael, you'd be surprised, because you know I lean "conservative." But as long as anyone can show up at an emergency room door and receive treatment, well, we might as well adopt single-payer and try to make the best of it. Which I am all for. nobody should be left to die. Hopefully the economic friction that the insurance companies impose on us will be similar to government inefficiencies, and we'll break even. And as for "government control" of health care, too late, we already suffer that. It's why I can't legally bring prescription medicine from Canada into the U.S. It's why I don't even know what medical procedures even cost until I get the bill. It's why "health care" (actually sick care) is a cartel here in NEO and everywhere else. All government permitted.

And what about the situation at hand?

Bill?

Should the government be able to tell the hospital where it can do business?

If the Clinic operates a hospital in the Lakewood building til the lease term expires, then shuts its doors, isn't that the way of things?