September 29
A New Hospital to Provide Good Competition?
Wednesday will mark the opening of the Kaiser Modesto Medical Center, a medical facility targeted primarily at people covered by Kaiser Insurance. Kaiser is the largest non-profit health system in the nation, and is aiming to reduce crowding in area emergency rooms and create competition in the existing healthcare marketplace. The facility is unlike traditional hospitals which accept all forms of insurance and the uninsured. Some believe that it will steal workers from area hospitals and drive up labor costs. Others feel that it will help stablize the healthcare system in the area and prevent companies such as Blue Cross from continuing to raise rates. What do you think will happen? Is it good to provide this sort of competition in the healthcare marketplace?