HoodaThunk?

The hospital wars in Loudoun are still ongoing with the latest salvo showing up in this week’s local papers. Inova, trying hard to maintain its monopoly status in Loudoun’s healthcare picture, puts up another ad that, frankly, appears to be trying the misdirection approach. You can see the ad here in PDF format. (It’s big, so be patient while it’s downloading.)

In the opening 2 paragraphs of the ad, Inova suggests that while other questions are worthy of debate, the most important question is “Where should that hospital be built?”, referencing the proposed new hospital in Loudoun. They then claim that HCA wants to talk about anything but the location. And, to hammer that point home, Inova expends the remaining length of the ad - 50% of it - on the question of Inova’s tax-generation status.

Now, if the most important question is a matter of location, why are we talking taxes? Inova puts forward “myths” allegedly raised by HCA and then proceeds to give “the facts” and ask “key questions.” Let’s look at these for a moment.

First “myth” is that “HCA claims a hospital in Broadlands should be built because it will generate more than $3 million in taxes and help ease County budget problems.” First things first, HCA has said no such thing. HCA certainly claims its hospital will generate than figure in tax money, but it is hardly using that as the reason - or even a major reason - why Broadlands is their choice for location. On the notion that HCA is advancing this as a principle reason, Inova has 1 thing right: that’s a myth. Note, too, that in the entirety of the rest of Inova’s ad, they do not dispute the $3 million figure. How, exactly, is this a “myth”?

The 2nd point is “HCA claims Inova Loudoun Hospital as a not-for-profit does not pay taxes.” Again, where’s the “myth”? Inova is a not-for-profit operation and, as such, they do not pay the taxes on their operation as HCA would. Down in the supposed “facts” section, they tout how Inova “generates property taxes on more than 400,000 square feel of commercial real estate.” So what? HCA would do the same and they would generate taxes on their income where Inova does not. (In the same “factoid” they make a pointed jab at HCA by saying that Inova has never sued the County to have its taxes reduced. Well, when Inova doesn’t pay the taxes in question, why would they ever sue? If HCA could manage to not pay those taxes at all, they wouldn’t have sued to have them reduced, either. Assuming they have - I’m taking Inova’s word on this.)

Time and again throughout this ad, Inova continues to harp on the notion that taxes shouldn’t be the basis by which decisions on where hospitals get built. No one is claiming it should be. Everyone is saying location is the key, but where Inova runs off the rails is their insistence that an arbitrary geographic distribution is what should be the deciding factor. As I’ve said before, linear distance between point A and point B is hardly a concern when you’re trying to reach a medical facility. It’s a question of how fast you can get there. A facility 3 miles away on a road with a 25-mph speed limit and stop lights at every other intersection would take longer to reach than one 5 miles away at the end of a 55-mph freeway. Location is the key, yes, but that location should be determined by where the population density is, not by how far the next hospital is away from the proposed one. The notion that building the HCA facility in Broadlands would somehow keep another hospital from ever being built along the southern side of Loudoun is ridiculous. The exact same arguments that apply in this case would apply in that case as well. If the population density warrants it, it’ll get built.

One last point, turning back to Inova’s claim that HCA wants to talk about anything but the location: HCA has run an ad in all of the same papers as Inova and they’ve been running them for the past several weeks. In virtually every one of them, HCA has raised the only question that matters: how fast can you reach the medical facility you need? Not taxes, not lawsuits, not dire predictions that medical facilities will never be built anywhere else. It’s a matter of: you need access to medical resources, how fast can you get to them? The citizens of Ashburn, Broadlands, and Brambleton are numerous enough to warrant a hospital in their community. We in Sterling, Countryside, Broad Run, and Lansdowne justify the one that’s there now.

Enough bickering: HCA should be permitted to build their hospital in the Broadlands location identified. The State Commission agreed years ago that we needed another Hospital. Everything to now has been delaying actions that have made that situation worse. Get on with it. Approve the application and get that project started.