Huntsville & Madison County is an usual healthcare market for the primary reason that the BIGGEST player – the public chartered not-for-profit Huntsville Hospital (HHSYS) – is the solitary largest hospital in the county, while the significantly smaller Crestwood Medical Center (CMC) is a mere speck on the wall in comparison.

What the area needs is a THIRD INDEPENDENT hospital to bring competition to the market. And, as you may be aware, Alabama’s Certificate of Need law and board are inherently anti-competitive. In fact, the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that CON laws – which the federal government abandoned several years ago – are inherently anti-competitive.

Nevertheless, I’ve not yet done a comparison with Jefferson County area hospitals. That would be phenomenally interesting, as well. As a corollary, I’ve found the reporting on this matter by Advance Media – which owns the Birmingham News, Huntsville Times & Mobile Press-Register, all found on the website AL.com – to be abysmally uninformative.

Listen to the words of Representative Richard Hanna — a Republican —
“I appreciate the intent of this bill and its sponsors to provide working families more flexibility in scheduling their overtime hours worked and time off. However, as someone who has employed hundreds of workers and managed a payroll, I do not think the bill ultimately took enough concrete steps to protect workers’ rights in dealing with their employers when negotiating and executing the comp time agreements proposed by H.R. 1406.”
“I voted No on H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act.”
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This sham legislation has been tried before … in 2003, Representative Jim Gerlach – a Republican – expressed the view of many :
“I have not heard from employers in my district that it is a big problem. The bottom line is that I just don’t see the need to do it. When you talk to our business people back in our district, their concern is with taxes, regulation and [the] increasing cost of health care. Those are the issues we ought to be working on.”
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What’s change since 2003 … the House Republicans have no new ideas, so they pull out the old stuff. Are businesses happy with taxes, regulations and the cost of healthcare today? So why are not the House GOP working on the budget ? The FY2014 budget is in a stalemate as Speaker Boehner has refused a House-Senate Conference Committee … so they are pulling out all stops to look busy.
It’s a sham.

Worse yet, although CBO said it would be neutral, it was amended to add government reporting requirements, which means it will cost the taxpayers.

The concept of the bill — a written agreement between the employer and employee — will end up having many employees being duped as Bosses will award OT to those employees that want Comp Time.

It’s a bad bill … but typical for this Republican-controlled House.

A cursory search for the term “civil rights” yielded the following results:

“The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.”

“…the nonpolitical rights of a citizen.”

And yet, so many folks say they want to “take America back,” but those same folks never say how far back they want to go. Before Civil Rights? Before suffrage? Before Child Labor Laws? How far back do they want to go?

It’s simple logic, really… anything that doesn’t grow is dead. And growth is forward motion. Just like we can’t return to yesterday, or even 5ive minutes ago, we move forward. And since we do, we might as well prepare for it. Those who refuse or don’t, are cowards.