HEALTH CARE TOO EXPENSIVE? IT'S YOUR FAULT!

I don't expect much from the local TV news, so I don't usually criticize it.  However, Tom VanHowe and Suzanne Geha flacking for the Spectrum Health colossus on WOOD TV's evening news program last night was too much to ignore.

VanHowe and Geha reported that -- surprise! -- the cost of health care has gone through the roof in West Michigan and that they had information supplied by Priority Health to explain why.  What neither revealed is that Priority Health is the wholly-owned health insurance arm of Spectrum Health, and since the creation of the Spectrum Health monopoly in 1997 through the merger of Butterworth and Blodgett hospitals, West Michigan has gone from the cheapest region in the state for health care to the most expensive.  (Monopolies tend to do that, you know.)

Instead what the grusome long-in-the-tooth twosome reported is Priority Health's laundry list of things that you, the ordinary Joe, have done to jack up the cost of health care.  First of all, you're too old.  Also, you're too fat.  On top of that, you're too poor, forcing wonderful organizations like Spectrum to eat the costs of caring for you.  (Hmm, I don't actually recall getting a free ride on my medical bills, but if Spectrum ever did, you can bet it would pass the cost along to you.  Don't mistake those reserves it has as a well of charity.  They are needed to pay for land and buildings Spectrum board member Rich DeVos wants to sell or rent to the hospital.)

Again, I don't expect a lot from the TV news, but is it so much to have two experienced anchors do more than uncritically burp up the pablum Priority Health feeds them to mislead the public?  Maybe VanHowe and Geha can think about that the next time he's getting sloshed and she's mulling over why she couldn't hack it in a major media market.

Comments

[SeeSpray]

She certainly does not follow in her aunt's footsteps...Helen Thomas has got to be so disappointed with her GOP suck-up niece.

[Ed H]

Thanks for the article and better yet the laughs.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Ed. Glad to give you a chuckle. Bill

[The Executive Director]

SeeSpray,

Thanks for the info. I've watched Geha on and off since, what, the late '70s. But I didn't know she was related to Thomas. I don't think much of either as journalists, but you're right. Thomas certainly isn't a suck-up to the powers-that-be, is she?

Regards,
Bill Tingley
Executive Director