…
Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia, benefits from the largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in the United States. In the six years since lawmakers in both states waived anti-monopoly laws and Ballad was formed, ER visits for patients sick enough to be hospitalized grew more than three times as long and now far exceed the criteria set by state officials, according to Ballad reports released by the Tennessee Department of Health.
Tennessee and Virginia have so far announced no steps to reduce time spent in Ballad ERs. The Tennessee health department, which has a more direct role in regulating Ballad, has each year issued a report saying the agreement that gave Ballad a monopoly “continues to provide a Public Advantage.” Department officials have twice declined to comment to KFF Health News on Ballad’s performance.
According to Ballad’s latest annual report, which was released this month and spans from July 2022 to June 2023, the median time that patients spend in Ballad ERs before being admitted to the hospital is nearly 11 hours. This statistic includes both time spent waiting and time being treated in the ER and excludes patients who weren’t admitted or left the ER without receiving care.
You might be dying in an under-served ER controlled by shady commercial interests, but it should make you proud that as an American you aren’t suffering through the horrible nightmares of socialized medicine. This is probably one of the most patriotic ways to die.
I wonder, would socialized medicine more closely resemble a monopoly, or a competitive marketplace?
Neither since it’s not run for profit. Are state parks a monopoly or a competitive marketplace? What about playgrounds? What about the ocean?
It would be kind of fucked having a state run healthcare provider competing with itself, no?
Does that mean the state run healthcare would more closely resemble a monopoly? ie the scenario that produced this drop in service quality?