Saturday, April 26, 2008

Shame On NCTimes: "Kaiser's Secret Dream Comes True"

Last Thursday, I tried to post a comment on this North County Times article: Palomar Pomerado pours concrete for new hospital.

Here is the comment that was not posted:

"Kaiser's Secret Dream Comes True"
"About a third of this new hospital is for Kaiser. PPH has an agreement with Kaiser that PPH has characterized as a trade secret. However, to convince Wall St. to support its bonds, PPH wrote the following last fall, 'Under the Kaiser Agreement, the District is obligated to provide inpatient and outpatient hospital services, primarily at the new PMC hospital, to Kaiser for members of the Health Plan in exchange for fees based upon a schedule the parties have negotiated including a fee for services rendered per diem and a fixed payment for bed availability guarantees. . . . After the District completes and opens the new Palomar Medical Center Campus, the District will be required to provide Kaiser a guaranteed hospital bed capacity. . . . After opening the new PMC hospital, Kaiser will be required to make certain fixed payments to the District. . . . the District has the right of first opportunity to negotiate with Kaiser to develop or participate with Kaiser in developing (at Kaiser's election) any general acute care hospital Kaiser proposes to develop in the District's service area.' The Kaiser agreement was approved in January 2004! It reality, the PPH-Kaiser agreement has been a big political secret!"

Why was my comment not posted? Perhaps my quoting from a PPH document violates the comment editor's policy against: "offensive language, defamatory statements, personal attacks or other questionable content."

My comment was well researched and should have been posted. The PPH document I quoted from is available on my website, 1). Also available are a first denial letter from PPH in which PPH characterizes the Kaiser Agreement as a trade secret not subject to public disclosure under the California Public Records Act, 2); a PPH document projecting Kaiser's need for 137 beds in 2015, 3); a document indicating that the new ERTC hospital will have 300 usable beds, and 60 "shelled" beds needing funding for completion, when the new hospital opens, 4); and a recent denial letter from PPH dated 11/26/2007, 5). The PPH-Kaiser Agreement was approved on 01/20/2004, which was 9 months before the $496 million Proposition BB was submitted to the District's voters, 6).

1) PPH2WallSt103007.pdf
2) PPH-KAgmtDenial1.pdf
3) KBedNeed.pdf (page 9)
4) PPHBdSupport122005.pdf (page 22)
5) PPH-KAgmtDenial3.pdf
6) KaiserInfo2004.pdf

Shame on the North County Times for keeping the community in the dark on the PPH-Kaiser Agreement!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Escondido Mayor Bans Citizen's Video Presentation

The Mayor of Escondido, Lori Holt Pfeiler, went to silly lengths to prevent the video presentation of Escondido resident Wally Gutierrez.

More discussion of what happened may be presented when time is available!

Here is the video of the promises made by then PPH Chair Marcelo Rivera that he wanted to present: Rivera Video

What is really troubling is the the video was presented at the previous meeting (the Mayor was absent), but the sound did not work, and the citizen was invited to return at the next meeting.

Videos of the Mayor's silly actions in quashing citizen advocacy:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The story in the NCTimes:
Before Story
After Story

NCTimes editorial favoring multimedia presentations:
NCTimes Editorial

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

"The Paper" is Banned By PPH

Lyle Davis publishes "The Paper" a weekly distributed in San Diego's North County region. During the preparation of an article focusing on PPH's CEO, Michael Covert, Lyle Davis was informed that his paper was no long allowed to distribute copies at Palomar Medical Center and at Pomerado Hospital.

Articles on the ban:
The Paper Banned Article (bottom of the page).
The SD Union Tribune and PPH spin the ban:
Biased Union Tribune Article

The offending article: "A Covert Operation . . ."
www.thecommunitypaper.com

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Auction Rate Securities Bite PPH

In 2006, PPH refinanced bonds, and issued new bonds. These bonds were auction rate securities having an interest rates determined by weekly auctions held by Citigroup. The ARS scheme was supposed to provide provide PPH with short-term interest rates for long-term bonds.

Instead, PPH's borrowing costs have doubled or even tripled! Further, PPH and Citigroup entered into an interest-rate swap derivative to partially protect from high interest rates, but since interest rates have dropped, PPH owes Citigroup money from the low interest rates!

Moodys has lowered PPH's outlook because of the exposure.
www.thecommunitypaper.com

"Extreme instability in that area ---- called auction rate securities ---- in the last five weeks has raised interest rates on about $180 million in debt that Palomar Pomerado is carrying from an average of 3.79 percent to as high as 10 percent."
NCTimes Moodys Article

I wonder if Citigroup informed the PPH Board that Citigroup was fined 1.5 million by the SEC in 2006 for violative practices in its auctions.
SEC Press Release