Republicans are supposed to be for a free and fair market – for capitalism, an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state, where competition and who is successful, is regulated and decided by consumers.
But some Republicans in Tennessee walked away from this party principle by allowing a government-regulated, socialist answer to the problems of two failing healthcare systems.
Why would Republicans choose a government-regulated, socialist answer?
They suggested it was the only option. But it wasn’t. Nor was it an option Republicans should have sought.
Allowing for a larger healthcare system to try and fix the woes of a smaller healthcare system is akin to proposing larger government is the answer to the woes of a failing government.
State Sen. Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, sponsored legislation making a COPA (Certificate of Public Advantage) possible, paving the way for a healthcare monopoly and the largest COPA-governed merger in the country.
Crowe served as a paid consultant to Mountain States Health Alliance when he brought the legislation. He remains a paid consultant to Ballad Health today. Crowe recently announced he would be seeking re-election.
When asked about the merger at the Washington County Federated Republican Women’s meeting last month, Crowe replied that all of the elected officials were for the merger and that it looked like a group out of Florida would have taken over anyway, and it could have been potentially worse.
The CEO of the monopoly, Alan Levine, came to Tennessee, amidst a scandal featured on “60 Minutes” where his organization in Florida was accused of medical fraud and where they later paid out $260 million in fines. Was it the same Florida medical group? Would it have been worse? Or the same?
Governor Lee later appointed Levine over a committee for Tennessee’s Charter schools. The appointment was contested, with Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, pointing to the scandal, yet the appointment was pushed through anyway.
And recently, Virginia Governor Youngkin appointed Levine, to his transition steering committee. Why would a man surrounded by controversy, over a failing healthcare system, continually be given appointments by higher-ups in Republican government?
A question no one but Tennessee Stands seems to want to ask and no one in Republican leadership seems to want to answer.
On September 19, 2017, then Commissioner Dr. John Dreyzehner approved the COPA application, two years after MSHA and Wellmont Health Systems filed their letters of intent. The TN Department of Health then executed the COPA approval conditions (Terms of Certification) on January 31, 2018.
The merger was not only contested by month-long local protests. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also opposed it. The FTC warned that COPAs are regulatory regimes adopted by state governments intended to displace competition among healthcare providers and immunize mergers and collaborations from antitrust scrutiny.
They went on to explain, ”As we have previously testified and submitted in prior written public comments, local consumers benefit from the close competition between the applicants in the form of lower prices, higher quality, and greater access to care. If allowed to merge, the combined hospital system would have a dominant market share of inpatient services and significant market share in several outpatient and physician-specialty service lines. The loss of competition that would result from the merger is likely to have significant negative effects on hospital prices, quality of care, and the availability of services.“
Representative Bud Hulsey, R-Kingsport and Senator Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, last session said, “What happens when healthcare and the government become the highest law in the land.” And this state-established healthcare monopoly is the realization of this concern.
The concerns of the FTC have since been fully realized as well. And the state who set up the law where they would govern, have not been governing, as Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey and Attorney General Herbert Slatery granted Ballad a suspension of these key provisions of the Terms of Certification during the “period of public emergency” and for a “reasonable recovery period”. This was all done under the auspices of Governor Lee’s Executive Pandemic Emergency Orders.
We ask that the terms of the COPA be re-examined. We ask that the law be followed. And we have conducted interviews with the people and healthcare providers in the region negatively affected, showing how this monopoly has not benefited the people.
As the healthcare monopoly has been unable to deliver on its promises, as the FTC’s concerns have been realized, at what point will this issue be dealt with?
When all the good doctors and nurses have been driven out and replaced with higher-cost travel nurses, who do not feed local families or the local economy? When healthcare prices are so high people are in debt just to afford local health options? When all the competing services have been denied Certificates of Need?
That is what is happening.
This is perhaps the single largest disservice that has happened to our region.
How those who helped legislate this issue into existence will speak volumes. And will answer whether or not they deserve to be re-elected.
If these concerns are met with censorship and termination, we are dealing with communists with the end goal being communism, as taking control of healthcare and taking control of the people is the first step. If these concerns are met with solutions, then we are dealing with leaders who made an honest mistake. I am praying for the latter.
We The People ask for a full return of a free and fair market.
To the readers, we encourage you to write our area legislators asking them to guarantee more oversight of our health care monopoly, not less, and for an immediate reinstatement of the TOC provisions. In addition, ask for legislative initiatives to encourage competitive movement to our market for outpatient and inpatient services to actually allow local ownership, not healthcare monopolization, to improve quality at a lower cost.
Your move, Tennessee leadership.
Senator Rusty Crowe sen.rusty.crowe@capitol.tn.gov
Senator Jon Lundberg sen.jon.lundberg@capitol.tn.gov
Senator Steve Southerland sen.steve.southerland@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Rebecca Alexander rep.rebecca.alexander@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Scotty Campbell rep.scotty.campbell@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. John Crawford rep.john.crawford@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Jeremy Faison rep.jeremy.faison@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. David Hawk rep.david.hawk@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Gary Hicks rep.gary.hicks@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Tim Hicks rep.tim.hicks@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. John Holsclaw, Jr. rep.john.holsclaw@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Bud Hulsey rep.bud.hulsey@capitol.tn.gov
A Republican-created medical monopoly in East Tennessee.
Republicans are supposed to be for a free and fair market – for capitalism, an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state, where competition and who is successful, is regulated and decided by consumers.
But some Republicans in Tennessee walked away from this party principle by allowing a government-regulated, socialist answer to the problems of two failing healthcare systems.
Why would Republicans choose a government-regulated, socialist answer?
They suggested it was the only option. But it wasn’t. Nor was it an option Republicans should have sought.
Allowing for a larger healthcare system to try and fix the woes of a smaller healthcare system is akin to proposing larger government is the answer to the woes of a failing government.
State Sen. Rusty Crowe, R-Johnson City, sponsored legislation making a COPA (Certificate of Public Advantage) possible, paving the way for a healthcare monopoly and the largest COPA-governed merger in the country.
Crowe served as a paid consultant to Mountain States Health Alliance when he brought the legislation. He remains a paid consultant to Ballad Health today. Crowe recently announced he would be seeking re-election.
When asked about the merger at the Washington County Federated Republican Women’s meeting last month, Crowe replied that all of the elected officials were for the merger and that it looked like a group out of Florida would have taken over anyway, and it could have been potentially worse.
The CEO of the monopoly, Alan Levine, came to Tennessee, amidst a scandal featured on “60 Minutes” where his organization in Florida was accused of medical fraud and where they later paid out $260 million in fines. Was it the same Florida medical group? Would it have been worse? Or the same?
Governor Lee later appointed Levine over a committee for Tennessee’s Charter schools. The appointment was contested, with Representative Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, pointing to the scandal, yet the appointment was pushed through anyway.
And recently, Virginia Governor Youngkin appointed Levine, to his transition steering committee. Why would a man surrounded by controversy, over a failing healthcare system, continually be given appointments by higher-ups in Republican government?
A question no one but Tennessee Stands seems to want to ask and no one in Republican leadership seems to want to answer.
On September 19, 2017, then Commissioner Dr. John Dreyzehner approved the COPA application, two years after MSHA and Wellmont Health Systems filed their letters of intent. The TN Department of Health then executed the COPA approval conditions (Terms of Certification) on January 31, 2018.
The merger was not only contested by month-long local protests. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also opposed it. The FTC warned that COPAs are regulatory regimes adopted by state governments intended to displace competition among healthcare providers and immunize mergers and collaborations from antitrust scrutiny.
They went on to explain, ”As we have previously testified and submitted in prior written public comments, local consumers benefit from the close competition between the applicants in the form of lower prices, higher quality, and greater access to care. If allowed to merge, the combined hospital system would have a dominant market share of inpatient services and significant market share in several outpatient and physician-specialty service lines. The loss of competition that would result from the merger is likely to have significant negative effects on hospital prices, quality of care, and the availability of services.“
Representative Bud Hulsey, R-Kingsport and Senator Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, last session said, “What happens when healthcare and the government become the highest law in the land.” And this state-established healthcare monopoly is the realization of this concern.
The concerns of the FTC have since been fully realized as well. And the state who set up the law where they would govern, have not been governing, as Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey and Attorney General Herbert Slatery granted Ballad a suspension of these key provisions of the Terms of Certification during the “period of public emergency” and for a “reasonable recovery period”. This was all done under the auspices of Governor Lee’s Executive Pandemic Emergency Orders.
We ask that the terms of the COPA be re-examined. We ask that the law be followed. And we have conducted interviews with the people and healthcare providers in the region negatively affected, showing how this monopoly has not benefited the people.
As the healthcare monopoly has been unable to deliver on its promises, as the FTC’s concerns have been realized, at what point will this issue be dealt with?
When all the good doctors and nurses have been driven out and replaced with higher-cost travel nurses, who do not feed local families or the local economy? When healthcare prices are so high people are in debt just to afford local health options? When all the competing services have been denied Certificates of Need?
That is what is happening.
This is perhaps the single largest disservice that has happened to our region.
How those who helped legislate this issue into existence will speak volumes. And will answer whether or not they deserve to be re-elected.
If these concerns are met with censorship and termination, we are dealing with communists with the end goal being communism, as taking control of healthcare and taking control of the people is the first step. If these concerns are met with solutions, then we are dealing with leaders who made an honest mistake. I am praying for the latter.
We The People ask for a full return of a free and fair market.
To the readers, we encourage you to write our area legislators asking them to guarantee more oversight of our health care monopoly, not less, and for an immediate reinstatement of the TOC provisions. In addition, ask for legislative initiatives to encourage competitive movement to our market for outpatient and inpatient services to actually allow local ownership, not healthcare monopolization, to improve quality at a lower cost.
Your move, Tennessee leadership.
Senator Rusty Crowe sen.rusty.crowe@capitol.tn.gov
Senator Jon Lundberg sen.jon.lundberg@capitol.tn.gov
Senator Steve Southerland sen.steve.southerland@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Rebecca Alexander rep.rebecca.alexander@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Scotty Campbell rep.scotty.campbell@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. John Crawford rep.john.crawford@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Jeremy Faison rep.jeremy.faison@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. David Hawk rep.david.hawk@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Gary Hicks rep.gary.hicks@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Tim Hicks rep.tim.hicks@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. John Holsclaw, Jr. rep.john.holsclaw@capitol.tn.gov
Rep. Bud Hulsey rep.bud.hulsey@capitol.tn.gov
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Danielle Goodrich
Danielle Goodrich