Kootenai Health Crisis: North Idaho Hospital on the Brink of Financial Collapse – Eyes Anti-Democratic Theft of Public Property
They’re Going To Steal Our Hospital
Covid-19, Vaccine Mandates, historic levels of inflation, pornography in the libraries, war in Ukraine, masks in our schools, drag queens performing for children in the park downtown, Kootenai County has been dealing with a lot of issues over the last two years. But sometimes it’s the things that go unsaid, or are omitted by the Press that could have the biggest impact on our daily lives here in beautiful North Idaho.
Kootenai Health, or more accurately, Kootenai Hospital District is a community owned hospital district that was created in 1956 by the residents of Kootenai county. The hospital is governed by an elected board of trustees, and as a publicly funded entity, the hospital has the ability to collect taxes from the citizens of the county to fund its services. In exchange for this taxing authority the people of Kootenai County are supposed to have a say in the policies enacted by the board.
Kootenai Health is “the county’s largest employer,” and as such, has a tremendous impact on our economy here in North Idaho, growing from 1,800 employees in 2011 to 4,200 employees in 2021. Everything from the unemployment rate to the housing market are affected by Kootenai Health.
Financial Trouble
For the past several years, the Press has faithfully reprinted the hospital’s press releases, showering praise on their “accomplishments” and reassuring the public that the hospital is doing just great! Expansions, awards, achievements… Like clockwork, the CDA Press “reports” it all. And when they aren’t busy rewriting the Hospital’s press releases, they are “battling disinformation” surrounding their vaccine mandates, and financial health.
It may come as a surprise to the residents of the county that Kootenai Health might not be as financially healthy as they have been led to believe by the former editor of the Press, Mike Patrick.
In a 2021 article titled “Don't Believe lies About Hospital's Health” former Kootenai Health Trustees Terence Neff, Kattie Brodie, and (at the time candidate for trustee) Robert McFarland state:
“A campaign flyer was recently distributed stating that the pandemic significantly weakened the financial position and long-term viability of Kootenai Health. We want to state that this statement is absolutely and totally false.”
But now, just one year later, the crisis facing the hospital has become too big to lie about or ignore any longer. In an August 6th “My Turn,” Kootenai Health CEO John Ness said “Kootenai Health, […] is facing financial losses like none we have experienced before.”
Vaccine Mandate Decimates Workforce
The financial crisis began when a significant amount of employees at Kootenai Health quit or were fired because they refused to comply with the hospital’s Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates, which left the hospital seriously understaffed. The vaccine mandate was opposed by the majority of people in the county, but was imposed anyway by the mostly liberal leaning board of trustees. All of the pearl clutching about “overflowing hospital beds” wasn’t because the hospital was filled to the brim with Covid patients - it was because the doctors and nurses who objected to the Vaccine were forced out.
This shortage has led to the hospital hiring temporary employees, or traveling nurses and doctors costing the hospital up to, in Ness’s words “$7.5 million EACH MONTH on contract labor alone. Prior to the pandemic, contract labor expenses averaged less than $4 million per year. Clearly, the current rate is unsustainable.”
Agenda 2030
To add to the financial instability of the hospital, they have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades, on everything from the façade of the building, expanding their Eastern wing, as well as their new data sharing, big tech EPIC health tracking system, which is of course a part of it’s “Agenda 2030 Vision” which according to Ness calls for “One connected team, boldly transforming the health care experience, to become a premier medical destination.”
And Kootenai Health has indeed been working very hard on becoming more interconnected. One of these “connections” they recently unveiled is their “Behavioral Health Partnership” with the Tacoma-based company called MultiCare. In the last line of their press release, it is also revealed that Kootenai Health purchased their new record keeping software EPIC through MultiCare, making the hospital more interconnected, and some might say dependent on this out-of-state company.
MultiCare, is a partner with the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-abortion, pro-transgender, George Soros linked activist group, and committed to “diversity” in healthcare. They also offer “Gender-Affirming Care” to their patients, and even run a “Gender Affirming Children’s Clinic” at Mary Bridge Children’s hospital. According to their website:
“The Mary Bridge Children’s Gender Health Clinic accepts new patients up to age 17 ½ and younger and will provide gender-affirming care for people up to age 18 or completion of high school. Our services are for children and adolescents…”
Proposed Solutions
According to documents that the Idaho Tribune has received, the hospital has been operating with a $26.5 Million loss, and will “require a reduction of expenses and an increase in revenue of $35-40 million” during the remainder of 2022 to stay afloat. Agressive hiring freezes, contract labor reduction, suspension of pay raises, and “Reorganization” of the hospital are all being looked at as ways to keep the hospital from going under.
Although the hospital’s plans for “reorganization” are not detailed in these documents, their recently posted agenda for their September 6th Board of Trustee’s meeting might shed some light on what they are thinking, and it’s shocking.
Under the “Special Reports” section of their agenda they list three main “information items”:
• Idaho Hospital District Statute Review – Joel Hazel, Witherspoon Kelley
• Hospital District Structure Background – Kaufman Hall
• Debt Covenant Considerations – Kimberly Webb, Kaufman Hall
To the average Joe, these topics seem innocuous, but thanks to several concerned Hospital staffers, we have been able to piece together what this really means. In short, the board is looking to reorganize the hospital, not as a public entity with an elected board of trustees, but as a non-profit 501(c)3 foundation with an appointed board of trustees that will disregard the Will of the People, and instead do what is “in the best interest of the Hospital.”
This is essentially theft. Theft of the public’s hospital, theft of our rights as citizens, and if the hospital would ever go up for sale, theft of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars out of taxpayer’s pockets.
How Is This Even Legal?
Just one year ago, it would have been impossible for the hospital to pull such an underhanded maneuver, alienating the hospital from the public, but thanks to Rep. Rod Furniss (District 35B) and Sen. Steve Bair (District 31) who sponsored HB 603, hospital districts can now be changed from public to private non-profit entities.
The bill provides for the “lease or sale of hospital district property,” and provides for the “conveyance of hospital district property to a nonprofit corporation,” while at the same time declaring an “emergency,” and providing an effective date of July 1, 2022.
Before this bill was introduced (and unanimously passed) in order for a hospital district like Kootenai Health to sell their hospital, it would have to come to a vote by the elected board of trustees, go on the ballot to be voted on by the citizens of the county, and garner a 2/3rds majority of those votes to proceed with the sale. The proceeds of that sale would then go into the county coffers, and be spent by our elected county commissioners.
Since the advent of HB 603 however, things have seriously changed. Now, if those involved with the Hospital District were inclined to sell Kootenai Health, they could simply change their status to non-profit with a vote by the Board of Trustees, appoint “friendly” trustees to the board that wouldn’t oppose the sale, and completely bypass the need for a county-wide vote. The proceeds of the sale under this structure would then go to the non-profit foundation, which would then be directed to the purchasing entity to do with as they please. There is literally nothing the public can do about it.
Assault on Our Democracy
We have a unique culture here in Idaho’s panhandle, and we value our traditional Christian morality, our freedom, and our ability to have a government that represents those values, but we have seen over and over again how a small privileged elite in our county want to take that away from us, and prevent the people of the county from electing officials that represent those values.
Take, for example, the recent debacle at North Idaho College. Local conservatives elected 3 strong conservatives to take back the culture at the college from a long entrenched liberal elite, and in an effort to nullify the results of the election, one trustee was threatened with lawsuits and bullied by the Press and fake Republican groups until he resigned. This left a stalemate on the board: 2 conservatives vs. 2 liberals. Instead of compromising with the conservatives, Trustees Christie Wood and Ken Howard resigned, allowing the liberal/establishment State Board of Education to appoint 3 new trustees, giving the liberals a majority on the board, steamrolling the Will of the People at every turn.
Another example can be found in the Optional Forms of Government hearings last year, when County Commissioner Chris Filios lamented how the voters of Kootenai County elect “unqualified” people to positions of power, favoring instead changing the form of our local government, removing our ability to elect our sheriff, and instead allowing for the appointment of a state controlled Kommissar that will go along with these elitist’s “vision” for the future.
The same thing is about to happen to our Hospital District and Kootenai Health. Instead of a democratically controlled board that serves at the behest of the people, Kommissars will be appointed to rule over our Kootenai County’s largest employer, leaving the people with absolutely no recourse.
Vaccine Mandates? Mask Mandates? “Gender-Affirming” care? Shut up and eat the bugs, bigot; you aren’t qualified to have an opinion anymore.
Why are they doing this?
It’s clear that the establishment in Kootenai County has been taking loss after loss, thanks to the dedicated volunteers and representatives elected to the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, and they can see the writing on the wall. Their time is running out and they are attempting to seize control of as many public institutions as they can, and then effectively take them off the market, cementing a permanent bureaucracy of unelected “experts” who will make sure that you COMPLY.
Upcoming Board Meeting
Kootenai Health’s next board meeting where this “structural review” will take place on September 6th, 2022.
Their website says: “Due to the continued presence of COVID-19 in our community and room size constraints, Board meetings will be available to the public online. Please contact Kootenai Health administration at (208) 625-4001 for more information.”
Are we going to let these “experts” steal our community hospital, and jeopardize the health of our community, economic and otherwise? Time will tell.
If you’ve made it this far, maybe you can go one step further and send us a Donation today!