Today's Tennessean has a story on how HCA and other large corporate health care companies are able get there way to control their market space through lobbying and legislation rather than through competing in an open market. There latest efforts of their lobbying agent, the American Hospital Association, are focused on restricting the growth in specialty centers through federal legislation. An example of the type of center they wish to restrict would be free standing, independent cardiac surgery centers.
"Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, held a hearing yesterday on the matter. Full-service hospitals such as the 190 run by HCA have lobbied Congress to restrict the growth of specialty medical centers, saying they siphon off the lucrative heart and surgical patients who are needed to subsidize unprofitable services such as emergency care."
And why is emergency care unprofitable? Why previous legislative meddling in the health care industry, of course.
So how do the Senators backing corporate health care's wishes rationalize this move?
"'As for competition, I'm all for it as long as it's on a level playing field,' said Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is helping Grassley draft the legislation. 'I'm not sure the field is level between community hospitals and specialty hospitals because doctors decide where patients go.'"
That's right; they are squashing competition from small businesses and free markets in order to help large corporations that are unable to compete any other way.
There is so much money going into this lobbying effort that the American Hospital Association has been able to get Democrats and Republicans behind this effort to legislate market share.
