- Jun 6, 2007
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Democrat leadership in Congress should stop allowing the Jan 6th investigation to drag out because it is obstructing Congress from doing its job of solving problems even viable small ones to make Americans lives better. Donald Trump doesn't care about the rule of law, doesn't care about America's democracy specifically its bedrock ideal that the peaceful transition of power is sacrosanct and is an extreme narcissist the vast majority of people know this about the guy; however, he is smart and he would never allow himself to be criminally culpable in conspiring to trespass at the capital and obstruct the certification of the electoral college the crimes of June 6th so let us move on Democrats.
Democrats should be focusing on solving problems that exist in the nation. This past Wednesday The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story that should enlighten the minds of members of Congress's that they need to pass some legislation to stop the abuse that went on here. Prospect Medical Holdings is selling Crozer Health System which owns four hospitals in Delaware county Pennsylvania these hospitals are in middle income or middle to lower income communities. Back in 2016 Crozer Health System was a non-profit health system and during that year Prospect purchased them then later on at the direction of the Prospect's controlling owner Leonard Green & Partners Prospect sold the real-estate of these four Crozer Health System's hospitals in a land-lease deal where Prospect sells this real estate getting a big pay day of the fair market value and the hospitals then become tenants in a lease for the real-estate to the buyer. From this land-lease deal these Crozer health system hospitals are required to pay millions of dollars in rent payment to the owner. Because of the income of the patients of these four hospitals many of them are on Medicaid if insured at all and as knowledgeable people know Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals overall don't cover most hospitals costs. Around two weeks ago Prospect permanently layed-off it is commonly believed approximately three hundred people from the Crozer Health system including managers that ran clinical programs system wide. The writing is on the wall these hospitals won't offer as quality of service as they did and some will almost certainly be closed because of the financial impairment caused by greedy private equity owners who plundered the assets of a hospital system to line their pockets! Congress needs to act here they should outlaw these land-lease deal for hospitals and health care provider systems. Similarly, Congress should outlaw taking the equity out of such real estate through loans or bond issues when the proceeds of such debt financing will go to stock dividends or if there is private equity ownership consulting fees for such owners and other financial abuse uses!
Congress should be focusing on enacting legislation that reforms the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) to stop the unconscionable outcomes occurring in that program resulting from the Pandemic. The NHSC is a federal government program that brings health care workers to needy areas across the nation by offering partial loan repayment or scholarships for the workers health care education. One program entails that the worker gets $50,000 in loan forgiveness for a two year commitment to work in a needy area. The problem in this program caused by the pandemic is that quite a number of workers are losing their jobs because their employer has pandemic related revenue problems or just a drop off in patients also caused by the Pandemic. This results in the worker having to scurry around for a program eligible job and in quite a number of cases meeting this requirement would require the worker to move which is a hardship. The terrible consequences befalling these workers is that when they are found in breach of their contract because of the pandemic related loss of employment the program penalty is $7500 for each uncompleted month in their contract plus the pro rata portion of their loan forgiveness that is for the uncompleted months plus a high interest on top of all this, the highest permitted which currently is around nine percent. For the scholarship program worker the penalty is treble damages, three times the amount of the scholarship. This is leading ordinary Americans to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional debt from this program.
Why doesn't Congress change this program for the Pandemic. Allow program participants to suspend their contract for nine months to get another eligible job and reduce the monthly fine to $1000 what it was back in 2002 before it was changed and make the interest rate two percent above the government's average borrowing costs (maybe the ten year treasury rate). Maybe Congress would want to consider changing the program by offering an option for risk adverse people what is meant here is currently the program pays the loan forgiveness up front and if there is a problem with performance the participant pays the government back with penalties, why doesn't Congress change the program where the loan repayment is paid as the worker performance is completed on a three month basis ( government also could add a two percent annual interest rate on the payout). This way if a program participant doesn't perform after a fair amount of time given for that person to become compliant they just get kicked out of the program and since the Federal government hasn't paid out the balance of the loan repayment connected with the owed performance the government can forget all the monies owed, penalties and interests and save on all the staff expenses associated with those aspects of the program.
Congress should consider on the scholarship program doing away with the treble damages which results in a crushing debt and garnish cooperation if possible by doing the following. Let us say the participant got a scholarship worth $250,000 and it was for five years of service and the participant performed one year and then left the program for a big high paying job. So in all fairness the former participant owes the government $200,000 so what the Federal Government should do is break the balance up into four loans for one-quarter of the principle each with different term lengths, 5oK at a 5 year term payable monthly at the 10 year Fed Funds rate plus 2 percent, 50K at a 10 year term payable monthly at said rate, 50K at a 15 year term payable monthly at said rate, and 50K at a 20 year term payable monthly at said rate. This imposition of four loans on the participant would allow the government if need be, for nonperformance of the loan, to sell each loan at the end of each term to a collection agency and get largely made whole and the reneging participant would have these loans with entities with the wherewithal to collect on his or her back for twenty years! This seems like a fairer program for all parties.
Democrats should be focusing on solving problems that exist in the nation. This past Wednesday The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story that should enlighten the minds of members of Congress's that they need to pass some legislation to stop the abuse that went on here. Prospect Medical Holdings is selling Crozer Health System which owns four hospitals in Delaware county Pennsylvania these hospitals are in middle income or middle to lower income communities. Back in 2016 Crozer Health System was a non-profit health system and during that year Prospect purchased them then later on at the direction of the Prospect's controlling owner Leonard Green & Partners Prospect sold the real-estate of these four Crozer Health System's hospitals in a land-lease deal where Prospect sells this real estate getting a big pay day of the fair market value and the hospitals then become tenants in a lease for the real-estate to the buyer. From this land-lease deal these Crozer health system hospitals are required to pay millions of dollars in rent payment to the owner. Because of the income of the patients of these four hospitals many of them are on Medicaid if insured at all and as knowledgeable people know Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals overall don't cover most hospitals costs. Around two weeks ago Prospect permanently layed-off it is commonly believed approximately three hundred people from the Crozer Health system including managers that ran clinical programs system wide. The writing is on the wall these hospitals won't offer as quality of service as they did and some will almost certainly be closed because of the financial impairment caused by greedy private equity owners who plundered the assets of a hospital system to line their pockets! Congress needs to act here they should outlaw these land-lease deal for hospitals and health care provider systems. Similarly, Congress should outlaw taking the equity out of such real estate through loans or bond issues when the proceeds of such debt financing will go to stock dividends or if there is private equity ownership consulting fees for such owners and other financial abuse uses!
Congress should be focusing on enacting legislation that reforms the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) to stop the unconscionable outcomes occurring in that program resulting from the Pandemic. The NHSC is a federal government program that brings health care workers to needy areas across the nation by offering partial loan repayment or scholarships for the workers health care education. One program entails that the worker gets $50,000 in loan forgiveness for a two year commitment to work in a needy area. The problem in this program caused by the pandemic is that quite a number of workers are losing their jobs because their employer has pandemic related revenue problems or just a drop off in patients also caused by the Pandemic. This results in the worker having to scurry around for a program eligible job and in quite a number of cases meeting this requirement would require the worker to move which is a hardship. The terrible consequences befalling these workers is that when they are found in breach of their contract because of the pandemic related loss of employment the program penalty is $7500 for each uncompleted month in their contract plus the pro rata portion of their loan forgiveness that is for the uncompleted months plus a high interest on top of all this, the highest permitted which currently is around nine percent. For the scholarship program worker the penalty is treble damages, three times the amount of the scholarship. This is leading ordinary Americans to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional debt from this program.
Why doesn't Congress change this program for the Pandemic. Allow program participants to suspend their contract for nine months to get another eligible job and reduce the monthly fine to $1000 what it was back in 2002 before it was changed and make the interest rate two percent above the government's average borrowing costs (maybe the ten year treasury rate). Maybe Congress would want to consider changing the program by offering an option for risk adverse people what is meant here is currently the program pays the loan forgiveness up front and if there is a problem with performance the participant pays the government back with penalties, why doesn't Congress change the program where the loan repayment is paid as the worker performance is completed on a three month basis ( government also could add a two percent annual interest rate on the payout). This way if a program participant doesn't perform after a fair amount of time given for that person to become compliant they just get kicked out of the program and since the Federal government hasn't paid out the balance of the loan repayment connected with the owed performance the government can forget all the monies owed, penalties and interests and save on all the staff expenses associated with those aspects of the program.
Congress should consider on the scholarship program doing away with the treble damages which results in a crushing debt and garnish cooperation if possible by doing the following. Let us say the participant got a scholarship worth $250,000 and it was for five years of service and the participant performed one year and then left the program for a big high paying job. So in all fairness the former participant owes the government $200,000 so what the Federal Government should do is break the balance up into four loans for one-quarter of the principle each with different term lengths, 5oK at a 5 year term payable monthly at the 10 year Fed Funds rate plus 2 percent, 50K at a 10 year term payable monthly at said rate, 50K at a 15 year term payable monthly at said rate, and 50K at a 20 year term payable monthly at said rate. This imposition of four loans on the participant would allow the government if need be, for nonperformance of the loan, to sell each loan at the end of each term to a collection agency and get largely made whole and the reneging participant would have these loans with entities with the wherewithal to collect on his or her back for twenty years! This seems like a fairer program for all parties.
