HoodaThunk?

Living in LoCo over at LoudounExtra.com is reporting that the Virginia Commissioner of Health has extended the Certificate of Public Need (COPN) granted to HCA when they asked to build their proposed hospital in Broadlands. What this means is that the Commissioner understands perfectly well that the public need for a new hospital, deemed necessary in 2003, hasn’t gotten any less applicable today. Even if others are focused on some arbitrary pin-on-the-map discussion, the Commissioner has focused on the real question: do we have the population to warrant the hospital and where is that population centered (if at all.)

Combined with the previously announced action by the VA Attorney General and the FTC to halt Inova become Prince William’s only provider, that’s a strong argument in favor of the Board approving the BRMC application and get this project started.

As you might have noticed, I’ve changed the look of Hoodathunk? a bit. New templates are being created from time to time and I keep my eyes open for newer ones that might increase the readability of the blog. This particular one is called “Andreas04″ and appears to look better on my screen. Let me know if you like this layout better or if there are problems in the display.

Thanks!

ICE is reporting they’ve conducted the largest immigrations raid in Iowa’s history, arresting 300 people on immigrations violations from a meatpacking plant in Cedar Rapids. Let’s see if ICE lets them all go in a week.

On a business trip again and that means I’m sitting at a gate at United Airlines at Dulles International. Watching what’s passing for customer service from the airline gate agents is instructive, as usual. More on that to come but it’s going to be slow blogging for the next couple of days.

This week brought in 2 new ads in local newspapers from Inova Loudoun Hospital apparently really trying to tighten up the thumbscrews on Loudoun’s Board over HCA’s re-application for the Broadlands Regional Medical Center (BRMC). I’m going to address these in reverse order of appearance just for the sake of simplicity.

In this Sunday’s Washington Post Inova has an ad that asks, “Is HCA Misleading County Government Officials?” Interesting question, given the analysis of Inova’s previous ads. Today’s ad points the accusing finger at HCA over 2 statements in their 2008 re-application for building the BRMC. In that application, HCA makes these claims:

• HCA/Broadlands will “introduce a cardiac catheterization laboratory - the first in Loudoun County.”
• HCA/Broadlands will “be the first hospital in Loudoun County to employ emergency personnel specifically trained and retained to serve the needs of pediatric emergency patients.”

The Inova ad pounces on them and stresses that Inova offers both of these services, the first since February 2006 and the second since May 2006. It then proceeds to show how BRMC won’t offer any new services to Loudoun (aside from a specialized psychiatric unit).

As I’ve repeated said, the critical issue in needing a new hospital is whether the population density in a given area warrants it and can support it. What is Inova driving at with this ad? That no new hospital is allowed to open unless it provides “X” number of new services? Nonsense. Same with the repeated frantic “it’s only 5 miles from us!” mantra. We’ve already seen that other hospitals are every bit that close to each other. And 5 more miles in rush hour traffic with a loved one in the back of an ambulance ain’t trivial.

But what about the “misleading” part? When HCA announced that they would suspend their lawsuit against the County and go through the re-application process, HCA’s Mark Foust said publicly that this would be “essentially an identical application” to the first one. You know, the first one that was filed clear back in 2005. That’d be before Inova suddenly started offering the 2 services they claim HCA is “misleading” people about. This is clearly not an effort to mislead, it was an effort to get the application in front of the Board as quickly as possible. That it contained some outdated verbiage is hardly surprising. The application process is a lengthy one and the preparation of that application takes a huge amount of time and effort. Standing there with a completed application in hand, it’s not hard to imagine that HCA simply re-filed it with the application date in 2008. Hardly a smoking a gun to be running a full-page ad on.

The other ad appeared earlier this week, the one I saw showing up in the Loudoun Independent. Another in the Inova “HCA Myths” series, this one talks about patients leaving Loudoun for their health care needs. To suggest - as this ad does - that such a concept is a myth is dead wrong right from the start. They know that, of course, since they go right ahead reference the phenomenon further in the ad. The real thing to keep your eye upon in their assertions is the utter lack of proof they offer. Have a look at some:

• A hospital in Broadlands would be unlikely to attract many patients now receiving care outside of Loudoun County.
• The service area for a Broadlands hospital would be virtually identical to Inova Loudoun Hospital’s service area.
• Having two hospitals near each other at Lansdowne and Broadlands, consequently, could mirror the wester Fairfax experience of neither building sizable volume or levels of service and the area continuing to have high levels of out-migration for care.

“[U]nlikely…”? “[V]irtually indentical…”? “[C]ould mirror…”? Well, based on this, I’d say “yes, but they could anyway,” “actually, BRMC’s would be 5 miles to the south, remember?”, and “sure, but it might also not.” Again, pretty weak stuff. For an ad campaign that supposedly focuses on “location, location, location” they sure don’t address the notion of whether the said location is supported by a population density. The State Commission has already said that it does and they said that 5 years ago. If it did then, the population growth today only makes that more true.

Apparently satisfied with getting another couple minutes of fame, convicted DC sniper John Muhammad has reversed course on his earlier decision and now wants to continue his federal appeal of his conviction. So, he’s changed his mind. Fine. Get on with it. Determine that no reversible error took place in the earlier trial and send this slime on to get his sentence applied.

The military junta government of Myanmar wasted no time once international aid shipments hit their soil: they immediately seized it. Reports are now coming in that they’ve basically repackaged it, stenciling the names of their generals on the boxes along with “Aid from the Kingdom of Thailand.” In short, they want to hide from their people that they’re incompetent and completely unable to provide for them. Additionally, the generals who are putting their names on the boxes are redirecting the shipments to their regions which are not necessarily the places the shipments need to go.

While still fiddling with visas for the international disaster workers, the junta has approved the US to send 1 - that’s “one” - C-130 cargo plane with relief supplies. Don’t get me wrong, the Hercules is an impressive craft, but the amount of supplies one can load onto 1 of them won’t put a dent into a disaster need of this magnitude. I’m also far less optimistic that any supplies we send will actually make it to the people who really need it.

In the end, I fear, the government there will do far more to kill more people than the disaster has done.

Here’s an interesting story, “D.C. to arm police with assault rifles.”

The department already has 500 semiautomatic AR-15 rifles, which were converted from fully automatic rifles, and has trained 340 officers to use them.

Chief Burke said the weapons will go in service after the department decides how to rack them in patrol cars, but gave no specific start date.

Now, why would there be such a need for that kind of firepower when there’s a gun ban in DC? Could it be because people who are OK with breaking the law don’t listen to gun bans? One also wonders, if DC is such a dangerous place that the local cops need to upgrade their arms from semi-auto pistols to fully automatic rifles, why are everyday citizens under such protection that they “just don’t need to have guns”?

Fess up, Fenty. If your citizenry were armed to be able to defend their own homes, the same thing that has happened elsewhere will happen in DC: crime will go down.

Good luck with the machine guns, tho.

WUSA in DC is reporting on a claim by CASA de Maryland, a so-called “advocate for immigrants,” that Frederick County, MD’s immigrations enforcement efforts is costing taxpayers $3.2 million in training, enforcement, and jail costs. What the story neglects to tell you is that the local sheriff says that figure is completely bogus. Over at Gazette.net they have the whole story:

Sheriff Chuck Jenkins is disputing a report released Tuesday that places an annual price tag of $3.2 million on a program that allows his deputies to check the immigration status of everyone arrested in Frederick County.

“Much of it is not factual information,” said Jenkins (R) on Wednesday. “The costs are absolutely not true. … I absolutely dispute it.”

Jenkins stands by his claim that his department’s participation in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program will cost county taxpayers nothing extra. “There are no significant costs,” he said.

CASA is, of course, upset over Frederick County’s participation in the ICE 287(g) program and is tossing out distortions, misleading commentary, and some outright lies to gin up resistance to it. Be informed about the program from people who are actually involved in it. Go to the link and have a read at the sheriff’s response.

While reading Instapundit tonight I clicked on the reference he wrote about the Automotive X-Prize, the contest to see who can make a production-level car with a 100 mile-per-gallon efficiency. The link takes you to a Popular Mechanics item to see a few of the contenders for the prize. Some look pretty bland, others look positively alien. But the one that caught my eye, my interest, and my total focus was the Venture Vehicles’ Venture One.

Go to Venture’s web site - titled provocatively “Fly The Road” - and have a look at this little darling. I gotta say right now: I want one! The “standard” hybrid model is projected for 100 mpg, 100+ miles-per-hour, and a 350 mile range. The all electric version will do 75 mph and give a 120 mile range. (Again, projected.) That’s perfect for a commuter headed into DC. And it’s maneuverable enough to fit into tight parking spaces and into older side streets.

Sign me up…