Once again, Madison celebrates big government. The USDA's Rural Development Community Facilities Direct Loan Program has announced it will provide a $20.5 million loan to finance Madison Community Hospital's construction of a new facility on the south side of Madison. USDA Rural Development will also guarantee $10 million in financing through AgStar Financial. Public governmental entity Heartland Consumer Power District (which will benefit from having the hospital a few blocks closer so Russ Olson and Mike McDowell can hurry over every time the Madville Times gives them heartburn) is chipping in a $1.3 million loan. Sioux Valley Energy, a public non-profit cooperative, is loaning the hospital $780,000.
USDA and AgStar both tout the "economic development" and "vitality" this project will bring to Madison. During the first three years of the Obama Administration, USDA Rural Development invested over one billion dollars in over 9,000 projects in South Dakota. Nationwide those investments have supported hundreds of thousands of jobs in rural America.
Now, Madison friends, please turn to Mitt Romney and ask him what that malarkey was he said Tuesday night about government not creating jobs.
Is the loan from USDA dependent on the Farm Bill passing Congress?
Michael, I haven't read the full bill, but the Senate version of the stalled Farm Bill includes the Rural Development title.
Does no Farm Bill mean no hospital?
I am confused about one aspect of this post. I've seen your posts opposing Referred Law 14 because its a corporate welfare program. I am in full agreement. Government should not be choosing the winners and losers in the market. However here is a story of the government providing money to a corporation and it gets your full support?
Yes, I understand the Madison Community Hospital is a nonprofit. However a nonprofit corporation is still a corporation, the nonprofit part is just a tax status. By this reasoning would it be OK for the governor to provide corporate welfare as long as those corporations were nonprofits? I know of industry nonprofits that do nothing but take money and spread it to full corporations within their industry in the form of loans. Corporations like that are nonprofit. Would you support Referred Law 14 for those companies? I wouldn't.
I can see the argument that this nonprofit corporation provides a service to the public in Madison. By the same token so does a construction company that builds new houses in the community.
I guess its just where I fall philosophically. I can't see why the tax status of a company makes it better than another company.
@Ken - FYI - the government is technically - wait for it - a corporation. Now what are you gonna say?
Mike, my hunch is if this USDA loan was contingent on the farm bill, they wouldn't have have made an announcement.
Elisa, if they are planning on money being allocated a year or so down the road, they might not have included it in their announcement. I hope it goes well for them. Sequestration event will happen very soon, forcing budget cuts across the board.
Yes rufusx, the government is a corporation. I rarely mention that because it usually gets people on the left quite riled. However, as a corporation there is a contract between the government and the citizens called the constitution (both at state and federal levels). If politicians had stuck to this contract money would not be taken from citizens for 'public good' projects. Now its been a few months since I've read the constitution; however I cannot remember a part of the constitution that allows the federal government (USDA in this case) to act as a lender for a private business (non-profit hospital) using taxpayer money.
Not bad, Ken, let me clarify. My main intent is to remind my Madison neighbors, especially the Republican Senator and his boss at Heartland, that the government against which they so often rail as a campaign talking point is absolutely critical to keeping rural communities like Madison alive.
Ken does get me thinking about a reasonable analogy between my opposition to Referred Law 14 and the Madison hospital situation: if government were not stepping in to provide the loan for this project, could the hospital have secured sufficient funding anyway from private lenders? How necessary is this government assistance?
Isn't Madison within spitting distance of the best med care in SD?
Not much different than the regents duplication of services you don't really support Corey.
The best medical care in SD is vastly overpriced and the product of monopoly power through bribery by the AMA. Where has it gotten is in ranking for infant mortality? Look it up, our results suck. The only thing we achieve is higher growth in doctor pay than almost any other state. Whoopee! Isn't it a huge win for citizens that an MRI in SD costs 5x the competitive rate? No.
So add another facility, too small to compete. Kind of like losing a buck on every hamburger in your restaurant so we double our output to make up for it.
Saying there is competition in medical services at all is a clear statement you have no clue what is going on. There is zero competition. The doctors at Sanford and Avera both negotiate through the AMA. Pharmaceuticals and pharmacies both buy both sides of the aisle just like the AMA does.
The only way to correct this is a single payer system that puts negotiating power where it belongs: with American citizens. There isn't a single good argument against it.
Oh Goddess of all knowledge. Forgive me my transgressions of interpretation you don't agree with.
My brother received care in a large facility. There were three prices, 180k if you had insurance, 125k if you paid cash and 75k if you could only make a small payment. We all know there are problems with the lack of competition in health care.
You with all the answers tell me how a new small rural hospital will put the equipment together and then give that great competitive price we all desire or do anything besides provide a med center that will require subsistence from the government or fail?
Les: really? I thought hospitals charged just the opposite, giving lower prices to insured folks because their insurers have negotiating power, then sticking it to folks paying out of pocket.
What you say about proximity to Sioux Falls gets me wondering the same way Ken did, Les: would Madison Community Hospital have been able to secure funding for its relocation from private banks alone? Would the market support this move, or the continued existence of the hospital in Madison?
If this were a long term care unit, emergency outpatient or things on that order, I could see it truly accomplishing a need. Go to our lonely northwest corner of the state and you find one hospital with satellite clinics. At best around those clinics you will find some limited adult care.
My friend whose wife just died after five years of panc/liver cancer, the ins bills would be over a mil and the real bills maybe under half. He said because they knew the ins would negotiate them down.
I would say if the market would support the system, the fed wouldn't have.
Oof, I've been out with the flu for a day so getting caught up (my kids say I caught it from politics).
I really do think one of the largest industries in the US (the medical indsutry) could provide assistance to private medical organizations such as at the hospital in Madison. However as it was pointed out Madison is very close to Sioux Falls. It would be hard for the Madison Hospital in the market to 'sell' that a full service hospital is needed. Emergency and short-term services would be easier to sell.
I personally grew up in Volga and I can say we usually went to Sioux Falls for anything other than basic medical services. Brookings simply didn't have the medical services we needed or trusted compared to Sioux Falls. The same is true now that we live in Aberdeen. One of my kids has been going through ongoing kidney issues. We choose to get his medical care taken care of at the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Yes the care is higher cost, but it also provides the experience needed in such situations.