Clinton Fundraises With Founder of Doctor-Owned Hospital Hurt by Obamacare

Alonzo Cantu currently seeking federal permission for major hospital expansion

Hillary Clinton will attend a $2,700 per person fundraiser Friday night at the South Texas home of Alonzo Cantu, a longtime donor who founded a hospital that would have been banned from opening under Obamacare, and cannot expand due to the law.

Cantu is the founder of and major investor in the Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, a physician-owned hospital that was impacted by the Affordable Care Act’s ban on the ownership structure. The law banned the construction of any new physician-owned hospitals starting in 2011, and created a “legal minefield” for ones already in existence.

His opposition to the law puts him at odds on the issue with Clinton, who recently reaffirmed her pledge to defend the health care act on a campaign stop in Iowa.

Cantu’s hospital was one of the institutions that battled against Obamacare restricitons, which forced dozens of developers to bail on plans to break ground on new facilities.

The Doctors Hospital at Renaissance fought to get a waiver that would allow it to avoid the restrictions on expansion and onerous requirements such as filing annual reports to the federal government.

It currently is seeking permission from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to go ahead with a $200 million expansion plan that would double the hospital’s size.

Due to the Affordable Care Act, the government must approve all expansion plans for physician-owned hospitals.

Clinton has been lobbied by Cantu on the issue before.

He collected more than $600,000 for Clinton in the opening months of her failed 2008 presidential bid, and the “driving force” behind the money he raised for her from doctors was his request that she “block legislation that many believe could hobble the hospital Cantu built in town,” according to theWashington Post.

In response to a proposed 2007 bill that would have forced physician-owned hospitals to restructure, Cantu “brought together the doctors and local leaders, and they agreed to try to raise money for Clinton.”

Cantu referred to the Clinton donations as “protection money.” One doctor recalls Cantu urging him and saying, “We’ve got to give this money to Hillary so we can be exempt from the bill.”

The legislation that included the provision limiting physician-owned hospitals passed in the House but did not advance through the Senate.

Cantu has kept Clinton’s ear through the consistency of his support.

His first political donation, worth $1,000, went to President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. He started giving to Hillary Clinton right when she decided to run for Senate in 1999. He gave $25,000 to Ready for Hillary in 2013 and has given up to $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Cantu alone has turned South Texas into a fundraising hotbed for Clinton. In 2008, Clinton outraised Obama $888,000 to $7,450 in Cantu’s hometown. The fundraising success was “based almost entirely on her friendship” with Cantu, according to the Washington Post.

Clinton’s campaign did not return a request for comment on her current position on the restrictions placed on Cantu’s hospital.

Via: WFB

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Top Hospitals Opt Out of Obamacare?

The U.S. News and World Report has more bad Obamacare–is there any other kind?–news: The nation’s top hospitals may not accept many Obamacare policies.From the story:

Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.

Will President Obama call these institutions “bad apples” as he has insurance companies that followed the “law of the land”–aka, his “signature achievement”–and canceled millions of policies that people liked? Good grief.

Via: NRO

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[VIDEO] Under Obamacare: Your Home's a Hospital; Your Doctor's a 'Team'

(CNSNews.com) - President Obama's former health policy adviser says the law is changing the nation's health care system for the better, as more people are treated by a health care "team," in their homes instead of in hospitals.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, helped to design the Affordable Care Act, and he defended it Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley.

"Look, that issue of how the physician-patient relationship is going to change, there's no doubt it's going to change...I think, actually, much for the better," Emanuel said. "You're going to have more of a team. You're going to have nurse practitioners, you're going to have physicians, you're going to have pharmacists, you're going to have nutritionists advising patients.

"The second thing is, a lot more care is going to be moved into the home, out of the hospital, which is very appropriate because we're going to have a lot more ability to monitor people in the home, fewer infections, fewer falls and a big cost savings."

Emanuel said the law already has reduced hospital infections and hospital readmission rates.

As for Americans who are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies, Emanuel said that's okay -- those plans "are not worth the paper they're written on.

"We would not allow unsafe cars without seat belts, without airbags, on the roads. Similarly, we should not allow health plans out there that are really not health plans," Emanuel said.

Via: CNS News

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Family Doctor: I Want to Take Care of My Patients

As a family doctor, I have always believed in treating the whole person.

Every person is a unique individual, and you can’t cookie-cutter medical care; it’s individualized. I am concerned about health care under the new law, and my patients are very concerned.

Medicine has changed so much in my lifetime. My father had two kinds of patients in the 1950s and 1960s: those who paid in cash, and those he did charity work for. Back in those days, hospitals were not run by huge consolidated corporations – they were run by churches and charity organizations.

We can’t go back to those long-gone days of charity hospitals. And today, one part of living well often involves private health insurance—as long as government regulators don’t interferewith the individualized care that other doctors and I are providing. People having choices is a very important part of medical care.

In the past three decades, I have seen health care become more and more regulated by government. Of the 15 employees I hire, five of their jobs are completely devoted to filling out insurance forms and government paperwork. All that administrative work can detract from time spent on patient care.

It makes it difficult to take care of the whole person—body, mind, and spirit—if you don’t have an environment where you are free to do that. The biggest problem with Obamacare is that there are going to be layers and layers of government bureaucracy that will try to tell me how to treat patients I’ve helped for over 25 years. More federal control is the foundation of it.

Via: The Foundry

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Homeland Security's Future Home: A Former Mental Hospital

Chris Mills frequently gives tours of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a former mental institution where the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is building a $4.5 billion headquarters. It’s the largest construction project in the District of Columbia since the Pentagon was completed in 1943. So there’s a lot of ground to cover. Mills prefers to chauffeur his guests around the place in a golf cart.

A cheerful 55-year-old with a neatly trimmed mustache, Mills, who is managing the project for DHS, tells visitors to look out for animals. There are loads. Herds of deer, a flock of wild turkeys, and a bald eagle reside in the fenced-in facility. They might not last long outside. St. Elizabeths is located in Anacostia, one of D.C.’s toughest neighborhoods. But they have little to fear inside the high-security fences. “It’s like the wild kingdom in here,” Mills says with a chuckle.

Then he’s off in his golf cart with his passengers. His boss, Jeffery Orner, DHS’s chief readiness support officer, who oversees all of the department’s real estate, has come along for the ride. There’s a DHS public-relations person on board, too. She sits in the back, smiling and saying nothing. Everybody is wearing hard hats and DHS safety vests.

Via: Bloomberg Business Week

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