Remember When We Protected Hospitals At All Costs?

The Arizona Regional Medical Center in Yuma is “on the verge of collapse”, according to its CEO.

“We’ve been at this for well over a year now…we calculated that we’ve provided over $20M in uncompensated care to migrants crossing the border,” says Dr. Robert Transchel.

They’re getting the door slammed in their faces from state and federal governments  in response to pleas for aid.

“We just don’t have a payer source for these individuals. It’s not a sustainable model to have these continuing rising expenses without a revenue source to offset it.”

The last time we heard of the concept of “hospital systems collapsing” was…COVID-19.

In order to stave off the hypothetical circumstance of too many COVID patients, government stopped…at nothing. No person, no job, no business, no activity, no natural right was more important than making sure the hospitals weren’t overwhelmed. No amount of personal or economic destruction was deemed too much, just to make sure they didn’t collapse.

Your job? Not as important as protecting hospitals from being flooded with people. Your kid? Not as important.

If  government still values the sustainability of hospitals in border states like ours, I would expect the same pull-out-all-the-stops measures right now, if not yesterday.

And, oddly, I’m not seeing any of that.