Taxes Will Pay for the Children’s Hospital

As I have been writing, from the moment it was finally proved that the El Paso Children’s Hospital is financially unfeasible, it will be your taxes that will keep it operational. In 2007, Veronica Escobar and her supporters promised you that the children’s hospital would never be a burden to the taxpayers. She, along with the proponents, told you that the Kurt Salmon Study proved that the finances were feasible. What they didn’t tell you is that the study was manipulated to use a questionable Medicaid scheme to move monies around so that they can show that children’s made economic sense.

In essence, you were scammed, and like all scams, the truth eventually emerges. That is why Ponzi schemes eventually get exposed.

What they didn’t count on was the federal government catching on to the scheme that many others were using and thus they changed the rules. Conveniently, Escobar and cohorts, ignored the fact that Medicaid was still tax funds, albeit federal ones. Regardless, it didn’t matter because the El Paso Children’s Hospital was always based on a dubious financial model that would be considered a Ponzi scheme in the normal world.

From the onset, Veronica Escobar and cohorts have been relying on “it’s for the children” mantra to keep the scam in place. It worked in the 2007 bond election and will work again now that it has become evident that the taxpayers have assumed the operations of children’s.

Make no mistake, it is still wrapped around the “it’s for the children” mantra, sprinkled with “we saved the hospital for the community” and followed with a financial plan derived from make-believe numbers that only a creative accountant can decipher into positive numbers. As the mafia declines, the creative accountants go to work for the government sector.

In the end there is one undeniable fact, the pediatric Medicaid funds that were originally used by Thomason, now UMC, will now have to be split among UMC and children’s. They are unlikely to increase and thus the taxpayers are now saddled with supporting not only UMC but also the children’s hospital. In addition to the 2007 bond, you will now be supporting two boards, two hospitals and two sets of medical staff.

The last one is the reason that the children’s doctors are adamant against being absorbed by UMC. They want to focus on pediatrics and not have to support UMC doctors in medical services.

That is the fact that “it’s for the children” and “we saved the hospital” will conveniently ignore as the back-slapping and cheers are exchanged among all of those that were involved in the original scam.