At one time, fifty of Pennsylvania's sixty-seven counties owned and operated nursing homes. Originally "poor houses," they morphed into homes for seniors with little or no means, and who had no place else to go. Over time, that has changed. People want to stay and grow old in their own homes. Privately run nursing homes now accept Medicaid patients. Changes in reimbursement rates have made them less profitable to county-owned homes, who also pay much higher labor costs.
Last year, only 33 counties continued running nursing homes. With the five under sale this year, that number is about to drop to 28.
Fake Rev Mario Martinez, who gets bat-shit cRaZier by the day, claims that Executive John Stoffa's desire to sell Gracedale is a "diabolical scheme to throw the widows and orphans of the county under a bus."
He must have five other counties under his evil spell, too.
Now the voters have spoken. There is no political will anywhere to go up against this vote. That's how democracy works. The union at Gracedale has made sacrifices, and they do care about the residents. I have seen that with my own eyes.
But there is a red line at Gracedale. Voters may not paying $5 million or even $6 million to keep the home afloat. How about when it reaches $10 or $15 million? There is a red line. Sooner or later, when we hit it and have to close, we will likely find we have no buyer because the market is saturated.
22 comments:
Do you have a corner man for the upcoming charity boxing match with RMM at Pintabones gym? Perhaps you could enlist Jim Greggy to help, despite his Tae Kwon Do background I have seen him display some very crisp handiwork and feel it would be a good to reconcile with the slab.
Unable to argue logically or witjh facts, it is little wonder that Kake Rev Mario Martinez wants to fight, or that faux liberals like Donald Dal Masshole would eff him on. So much for the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Keep pitching the Stoffa/Angle scam. It was and is bullshit. Other counties have other issues.
Stoffa just lied again last week to hype his cause and had to admit it to county council. Like you, the Easton Excess laps up his slop.
The new Executive with a new, independent and informed county council will dispel this new strategy. The feared "Red Line".
When do we cross the "Red Line" on how many buildings Stoffa buys or how many contracts at $24, 9999. he gives his old pal Ken Mohr?
The "Red" Line should be called the Stoffa "Red Herring".
Cuckoo.
Public nursing homes compete with the private sector. Lamont McClueless was gushing at the last council meeting about how Gracedale was going to be reopening a wing and growing census. Even D Freeman mentioned that local, private nursing homes were starting to grumble. Can you blame them? Most pay property taxes which funds their competitor! Give us more money to operate Gracedale so we can steal you patients and put you out of business. Another reason why counties are getting out of the nursing home business.You cannot claim to be interested in private economic growth by competing with private businesses.
The only comment i have here is that no matter what--The place WILL be sold when the 5 years is up. The union and the fake rev will finally be gone.
Things there will have to be pretty bad before that happens. There probably would have to be another referendum.
The referendum side won the battle and lost the war. Unfortunately, the war is akin to Viet Nam, and the losing will drag on for years at great cost.
I would sugget that the Gracedale be sold. The reason for the sale is a new education program called Common Core. I would suggest that all take a good look at this since the amount to just get it started is $643M and that does not even support material needed.
If you can support a unneeded building in the middle of Bethlehem Township that will cost the county millions, I guess the care if the elderly can also be accommodated.
Stoffa gave another bullshit press release. He was shown to be a liar at the county council meeting. O'Hare is following up with his orders to discredit the county home.
So nothing has changed. Until we have a new, unbiased county executive and new and knowledgeable county council members this will continue until 2014.
Stoffa wants the place to fail and has been trying to destroy it for years. He wanted the money for his screwed up swaption payback and his buddies multimillion dollar building.
OK so across the state county homes being sold because they are losing money as a result of fixed low reimbursement rates and high labor costs but next year everything will be fine because you will elect a new exec and council. Keep telling yourself that. The reality is that eventually either property taxes will increase or cuts elsewhere will need to be made in the county budget to sustain a nursing home.
I bet property taxes will be increasing soon. But gracedales problems could have been fixed 4 years before the sale when the administrator at that time gave Mr. Stoffa a report on how to fix it. Funny thing is that report never made it past stoffa and is very similar to the premier report that we paid big bucks for.
I'm not familiar with this previous report. I am familiar with Premier's. Many recommendations were adopted, but some important ones were not. Privatization of laundry service and cafeteria were ignored. Why do you suppose that is? Was that recommendation in the previous report, too? Then we have a proposal to save $280,000 over 3 years by switching transports. That was ignored by Council. Then we have a revision to the wound team. Council interjected there, too. All of these savings are ignored. Then, when the nursing home blows its annual budget in 6 months, we're told there's nothing to see . When I point out that 5 counties are selling their nursing homes this year, I'm told to move along.
Message to anyone considering Gracedale: don't. The quality of care already sucks and it's going to get worse as the financial situation deteriorates. There are much better options for the same or less money. The building is falling down, the employees are miserable and angry, the management is not in control of anything. What a fucking mess. The fake mustache guy and the fake musician guy should be sentenced to live there with the fake mensa guy and the fake female wacko from west easton.
Let me say that, strange as it might seem, I have a much different view of the quality of care. While workers there might be angry, they really do care about the residents and even volunteer their own time and treasure. Dee Herman seems to want to work with, and not against, the staff. He might work miracles there, and I really do hope he succeeds.
12:53
Facts please, or at least sign your name so we can find you and draw pictures for you and charts so you can figure it all out.
Stoffa and Angle have poisoned the atmosphere at Gracedale. Much of the information in the news and on this blog is false.
There is no point in arguing why, since O'Hare and the Press have been and remain in the bag for Stoffa.
When new players come along who do not have a preset agenda to dump Gracedale, the real information will come to light and
Gracedale will be doing fine.
Hopefully, in the few months he has left, county council doesn't let Stoffa and his hacks do more harm then he already has.
I thought one of the arguments used to privatize was that Counties get less Medicaid reimbursement than private entities. At least that what I recall reading in the Manorcare report. Reimbursements should be equal.
Seems County facilities were the norm. Some could argue that for profit entities are competing with non profits County facilities? Will we be making similar arguments in the next decade when there are more for profit Prisons?
Five years from now, when Gracedale is still losing money, 7:58 will still blame Stoffa. Ten years from now, 7:58 will still blame Stoffa. Fifteen years from now, people will eventually realize that Gracedale's demise has nothing to do with Stoffa. It is just a victim of the same problems facing other public nursing homes. By then, it will be too late to sell and everyone but 7:58 will say, "We should have listened to Stoffa."
"We should have listened to Stoffa."
Words that will never be uttered by any competent or sane people.
But you are neither. You're just an anonymous coward. How does it feel to hide under a rock?
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