What could go wrong?

Other than a hungover C-List actor shooting your husband in the head, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

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Well, last week wasn’t a total ass-kicking at the hands of a demented gameshow host like Donald Trump, if that makes you feel any better about our current predicament.

Trump won his first presidency via 80,000 influenceable dipshits sprinkled across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Sure, Trump increased his margins, but only to the tune of 150,000 dipshits sprinkled across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, thus sealing his victory.

Not that it will make a difference in the result of the election, but in typical Democratic fashion, it’s always nice to at least know you didn’t get your ass kicked as thoroughly as you first thought.

The worst part, however, is we won’t get what would have been the funniest result: Trump winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College, which would have been our best chance at ending the system of slave-holder math, although it might have thrown us into an unprecedented Constitutional crisis thanks to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Oh well. Onto the Lame Duck Session of the State Legislature, which kicks off tomorrow.

I’ll be making some calls later today to see what horrors are afoot, and I’ll probably have a special dispatch in your inbox tomorrow. We’ll deal with today’s horrors today.

Akron and Summit County Democrats have absolutely shit the bed

The scope of this humble operation is allegedly Ohio politics.

But at the end of the day, I’m merely a one-man operation, which means that I can’t commentate on every single bit of news, though I may foolishly try on my prolific Twitter account.

Akron is admittedly somewhat of a blind spot. I could probably base a bureau if that were something I was interested in doing because every time I look in the direction of the Rubber Capital World, it always seems something sinister is afoot.

For example, over the weekend, I learned Summit County is selling its hospital to a private equity firm, which seems like a headline you’d only read in America.

From Arielle Kass of signalakron.com:

The $485 million deal to sell Akron’s Summa Health to a private-equity-backed company will allow the healthcare system to wipe out its $837 million in debt and reinvest in the hospital system, Summa officials said Thursday.

The sale, which still must be approved by state and federal regulators, would give Summa enough of a cash boost to become debt-free, said George Strickler, the chair of the board of directors. Ben Sutton, Summa’s chief operating officer, said the deal would also allow $70 million in annual investments in the hospital system for infrastructure and technology — the same amount as the annual depreciation — up from the $50 million to $55 million that’s currently being spent each year. Now, he said, the hospital is underfunded.

This arrangement is frighteningly more common than you’d think. One private equity watchdog group reported in January that private equity groups own roughly eight percent of American hospitals, though that number has assuredly risen in the past 11 months due to the ongoing spree.

In March, More Perfect Union reported that private equity firms are staffing one in four emergency rooms in the country, leading to lower-paid contractors replacing standard doctor and nursing staff.

I can’t think of any example of private equity ownership improving a business for the customer, let alone one as crucial to the well-being of communities as a hospital.

When America is foolish enough to sweep me into power, I promise private equity groups will be banned—seemingly overnight. I consider them one of the more parasitic creations of the past 40 years, which is saying a lot.

However, the situation in Akron is even bleaker than it appears at first glance because the new private equity ownership wants to use the hospital as a breeding ground for artificial intelligence.

From Taylor Wizner of ideastream.com back in July (emphasis mine):

J.B. Silvers, a health care analyst at Case Western Reserve University, said in theory, Health Assurance Transformation Corporation, or HATCo, is offering Akron a good deal with new tax revenue, forming a community foundation and making the health care system more financially sustainable.

But he said it all depends on if they find the balance between making the right changes and bringing in enough money with their separate artificial intelligence and scheduling software companies.

"The game that they're talking about is bringing in technology to make it more efficient and be able to handle larger capacity. It's your guess as well as mine as to whether that's going to produce a lot of profits for them or not," Silvers said. "My guess is probably not a lot."

So, for those scoring at home, the deal appears to be good as long as the new ownership group, which combines two of the worst industries in America, holds up its end of the deal.

What could possibly go wrong?

One source familiar with the negotiations that led to the decision blamed local Democrats rather than the hospital’s executive class.

“Believe it or not, it wasn’t the hospital brass that was against it so much as the old-guard Democratic machine that runs the County Executive’s office,” the source, who was granted anonymity to prevent blowback for speaking freely, said.

“Politicians who were too afraid to step out on a limb and try anything bold, even as the city and county wither around them. [Ohio Democratic Party chairwoman] Liz Walters is a member of our County Council and wouldn’t even respond to emails on the topic.”

That Walters can’t even respond to emails likely means she has too many irons over the fire and should quit one of her jobs. But I digress.

This is the kind of issue where the Democratic Party could show it’s capable of protecting working people from the interests of Big Business. But it would appear the city and county’s political apparatus, which Democrats control, folded on the issue.

The lone exception to that rule is Akron Ward 8 City Councilman James Hardy, who in January excoriated the potential sale of the county’s hospital to a private equity firm.

As originally captured by Comrade Ohio:

Unsurprisingly, Councilman Hardy resigned in July when the deal was all but set to go through.

What could the city have done differently? Well, it could have looked north to the publicly owned health system in Cuyahoga County, which, in recent decades, also has never been accused of having vast wealth and splendor.

From Dr. Sterling Shriber:

To convert Summa Health into a publicly-owned, county-run hospital system offers the best path forward for the health system and the surrounding community at this time.

Ten hospitals in Ohio are currently county-owned and run, with MetroHealth in Cuyahoga County being the largest and perhaps most well-known. I published a review and commentary of the state’s public hospital infrastructure in the Ohio Journal of Public Health last year. Despite its challenges, the system offers untapped opportunities for communities across Ohio, urban and rural alike. This brief from the County Commissioners Association of Ohio summarizes the law regulating county hospitals in Ohio, and the Ohio Revised Code offers latitude for county governments “to purchase, acquire, lease, appropriate, and construct a county hospital or facilities.”

Though there is not recent precedent for such a transition from private to public ownership, the law as written should allow Summit County to take control of Summa Health for the establishment of a county-run hospital system. Per state law, a county-run hospital system would function as an independent agency of Summit County government, with governing authority vested in a Hospital Board of Trustees comprised of six to ten members appointed by the elected Summit County Council. Hospital operations and finances, as well as board deliberations, would be subject to transparency provisions required of government agencies by the Ohio Public Records Act and Ohio Open Meetings Act, ensuring public access to information and greater accountability.

The Democratic Party, as at least I understand it, used to be the party of bold ideas and vision. Even the profoundly flawed presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson gave us Medicare while attempting to end poverty in the country.

How can any of these Democrats in Akron and Summit County look themselves in the mirror after allowing this shambolic transaction to transpire? It takes about two seconds of research to understand where a private equity and “artificial intelligence” company will lead this hospital and who will be hurt most by the cost-driven management (spoiler: it won’t be the wealthy and well-connected).

This private equity company gave the county and city’s ostensible leaders an easy way out, and they took it because they know damn well that most of them would be out of public service when the actual ramifications of the sale came due.

But hey, at least for now, they can go to bed smiling because they made a “pragmatic” decision.

I will never be a person who says that the two parties are the same. But it’s hard to begrudge people, especially the ones too busy working jobs and paying bills, who take a glancing look at the system and come to that conclusion.

What would have been the difference in outcome had the Republican Party controlled the levers of power within city and county government? From my vantage point, there wouldn’t have been one.

Hell, the Republican Party would have probably duped the voting populace by bleating about how the free market and private enterprise bailed out government mismanagement while lying about how this would inevitably lead to lower costs.

Then, they would have simply blamed the next Democratic president for the higher costs that inevitably hit people’s pocketbooks.

But what good is the Democrats’ shame if they don’t act on it?

Not lookin’ good, Clark County!

I said before the election that, one way or another, the election results in Springfield would tell a story.