Hospital patients foot the bill

We don't like Carson-Tahoe Hospital's proposed 7.5 percent increase in fees any more than we like any price increase.

It's true that the hospital is pumping its revenues back into the community-owned facility in order to stay competitive. And it's true that a stay at Carson-Tahoe still generally costs less than most other area hospitals.

That doesn't mean we have to like paying more next year than we are this year.

In particular, we don't like the reason, as explained by hospital officials. Medicare isn't paying its share of the costs, so the rest of us are expected to make up the difference.

Half of Carson-Tahoe's patients are supported by Medicare, which isn't surprising given the demographics of Carson City. Yet Medicare reimbursements to the hospital will be going down by some $2.2 million even as costs rise.

That doesn't leave much room to maneuver.

Neither does an apparently locked-in pay increase of 4 to 6 percent for hospital employees. We've heard hospital officials' complaints about trying to attract skilled employees, and we're sympathetic. We can only hope that the employees receiving these pay increases understand who's footing the bill - their paying customers.

We also must point out that Carson-Tahoe Hospital hasn't always made the best business decisions, particularly the $1 million lost on the Valley Meadows Living Center fiasco. Minden Medical Center wasn't making money until the hospital hired an outside management firm. While Medicare and rising costs make handy excuses for raising rates, that doesn't mean local officials can be any less diligent in how they spend our money.

Board members like to point out that they still haven't had to go to taxpayers for a subsidy - i.e, a portion of our property taxes - in order to support the hospital. That may make for a comforting bedside manner, but it doesn't really make a rate increase any easier to swallow.