County Council ‘failed’ the test

The question was the future of health care in Prince George’s County – specifically, whether to accept a deal negotiated by the county executive to save the Prince George’s County hospital system and pave the way to a new and much better health care system for the county.

The likely consequences of the council’s action are also clear. More than 2,300 people will be out of work. The 188,000 patients who visit the hospital each year (80 percent of whom are county residents and only 5 percent of whom come from the District) will now have nowhere to go. At least 3,100 trauma patients will have to be taken farther away and 3,500 mothers will have to find somewhere else to have their babies every year.

[April 9] was the endpoint of a process that started long ago. The immediate issue was the continued operation of the five institutions owned by the county and operated by Dimensions Healthcare – the trauma hospital in Cheverly, the Laurel and Bowie community hospital and two skilled nursing facilities. They provide 80 percent or more of the hospital beds in the county.

The ultimate question was whether we would get state assistance in creating a new, world-class health care system for the county.

The council had been told since January that failure to agree upon a bill that would create a new institutional framework for the hospital system would end all state funding. While they chose to be more obstructionists than problem-solvers during the process, they were part and parcel of the negotiations that had been going on the last few weeks.

They may not have liked it. They may not have agreed with the alternatives available to them. They may have been unhappy with the stakes and the framing of the issue. But they knew the choice before them. They knew they had to work out a solution by midnight or loose the opportunity for state support.

They chose to let the moment pass. That was their decision. Nothing they can say now changes that decision or brings back the option they discarded.

All of the excuses they have offered – and more I am sure they will manufacture as the consequences of their decision become clear – do not make up for their failure to resolve the issue when it could have been resolved.

The chance to create a new hospital and health care system for county residents on the terms that the county executive negotiated is gone.

Whether something else will come in its place is very uncertain. The governor and other leaders at the state level do not respond well to bad-faith negotiations and arbitrary power plays.

At the very least, [it] is doubtful that any future solution, if any comes, will be on terms anywhere near as favorable as those that were presented.

Indeed, the county executive is even now scurrying to find $30 million to keep the status quo in place till next year’s legislative session. That is $30 million in taxpayer money for another Band-Aid.

The issues involved in the hospital crisis are complex. There is no simple or perfect solution. The problem goes back through four successive county administrations and decades of under-funding and micromanagement by the county.

The situation should have been addressed years ago and the failure of our leaders to do so in [the] past is regrettable.

But, today, in the here and now, there is no mistaking the fact that it was the County Council who made the fateful decision. They overruled the county executive. In doing so, they presented no alternatives. Whatever their agenda was, it was hidden and unarticulated.

As individuals and leaders, we do not always get to choose when we will be confronted with fundamental questions. We do get to choose how we make those choices.

Our County Council chose badly.

Del. Doyle Niemann (D-Dist. 47) of Mount Rainier was the principal author of the Prince George’s County Hospital Authority bill.