Commentary: City Council needs to pause before making any rash

City Councilman Jerry Heimlicher, disturbed by the mounting cost of uncompensated care, has called for council to consider selling Memorial Health Systems.

Such a sale, some pundits theorized, might bring as much as $500 million into city coffers.

Seems to make sense, doesn't it? Why, rather than let Memorial's financial situation so deteriorate that the city has to subsidize the system, let's just cash in and let some private buyer deal with the problems.

That's great, but that's not in the cards.

Any private operator would likely insist, as a condition of the sale, that the city assume responsibility for the cost of uncompensated care -- otherwise no deal. So the city, in all probability, would have to take a big chunk of the sales price and create an untouchable reserve fund to cover its liability.

And here's yet another inconvenient fact: the city doesn't own Memorial -- at least not in the sense that the city owns the furniture in Heimlicher's office.

The city was directed to acquire Memorial by a vote of the people more than 60 years ago. The system belongs to the residents of Colorado Springs, and it's up to them -- not City Council, not the Memorial board -- to decide whether any change of ownership is appropriate.

We should also note that Memorial, by most indices, ranks with the best hospitals in America (as does its competitor, Penrose-St. Francis). This is not a trivial statistic -- it's one which is crucial for economic development, for quality of life and even for life itself. Memorial's success is no accident. It's a product of a superb and caring staff, of excellent management and of wise oversight by the board.

We doubt that an ownership change would improve the quality of care that Memorial presently offers. Rather, it might trigger an exodus of both staff and managers.

The rising cost of uncompensated care is a national problem, and is hardly unique to Colorado Springs. The present situation is unfair to hospitals, inefficient and untenable.

We suspect that, come January, a new administration in Washington will partner with the states, insurers and health care providers to devise a solution.

So rather than lurch heedlessly into a sale or change of ownership, we'd advise City Council members to sit down, take a deep breath, check their pulse rates and leave Memorial alone.

Until there is a plan in place for comprehensive health care reform, selling the hospital to alleviate the financial burden of uncompensated care would be akin to lopping off your forehead because you have a headache -- it might sound like a good idea, but it's not the most prudent thing to do.

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