Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 10:21:31 PM
I worked hard for Bob Beauprez this last election only to see Bill Ritter woo away what should have been Republican constituencies with false promises of "moderation." Now I sit here and laugh as, one by one, they get their comeuppance.
Most delicious of all, the Democrats aren't being gentle. No lubricant is being applied to the pole. Vlad the impaler would be proud.
Today, I am laughing at the health care industry.
State Senator Lois Tochtrop has scored a twofer. She is rewarding the nursing unions and giving the lawyers carte blanche to sue hospitals with Senate Bill 10, a bill "Concerning Nurse Staffing Levels in Hospitals."
"Each hospital in the state shall appoint a staffing committee to assist in the development and implementation of a staffing plan for the hospital. At least one-half of the members of the staffing committee shall be Registered Nurses currently providing direct patient care in the hospital. If the Registered Nurses employed by the hospital have elected a collective bargaining representative, the Registered Nurse representatives on the staffing committee shall be selected by the collective bargaining representative. Participation in the staffing committee shall be considered a part of the employee's regularly scheduled work week."
This bill is a disaster for Colorado's health care industry, which makes it a disaster for all of Colorado. Hospitals are a business. No business can survive if it cannot control labor costs.
Recent examples of businesses which allowed unions to "manage" their labor policies for them are the "big three" automobile companies in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's and Delta Air Lines which was bought by its pilots unions. Delta is in Bankruptcy. Chrysler is owned by a German company. Ford lost $5 Billion in the last quarter. At one time General Motors was the largest corporation in the world and had a 50% share of the US auto market. It is a shadow of its former self. This catastrophe was brought on by a management that willingly accepted disadvantageous labor agreements and policies.
Everyone but the American consumer paid a price for these companies unwillingness to stand up to labor. Labor and investors lost when the companies downsized as the consumer found foreign products.
The Democrats should have learned a lesson from this. This bill proves that they did not, and it proves it in spades. From the day this bill is passed, no Hospital management in Colorado will be in a position to control its labor costs.
Going further, once these staffing plans are adopted, deviations will be subject to fines of $5,000 per day. Since it will be impossible to always meet the staffing plan, lawyers will use a hospital's failure as another club in litigation. This bill imposes detailed daily staffing reports to be kept by hospitals. It even encourages staff to report on hospitals which don't meet their staffing plan, a nice police state touch.
It gets worse. The costs this bill imposes on hospitals will and must be passed on to insurance carriers as patients rotate through the system. Once again, the business community (which also supported Ritter as a "moderate") will be asked to pick up the tab.
This is a cost that the Federal Government (Medicare) won't pick up, which will weaken all of Colorado's health care system.
How could a worse bill for all of Colorado than this one be designed? I am confident that we will find out, given the kind of legislature and governor we have elected.