EDITORIAL: UMC must operate in open

So far, the Nevada Legislature has done nothing with Senate Bill 33. That shouldn’t change.

SB33 would give taxpayer subsidized University Medical Center broad exemptions to the state’s public records and open meeting laws, and allow the hospital to conduct a sizable amount of business in secret. The legislation was requested by Clark County as part of a new governance structure that was adopted with the goal of reducing UMC’s financial losses.

The hospital has been a drain on county finances, losing hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years. Management and operational changes haven’t stopped the bleeding. Last year, despite the elimination of almost 400 positions at the hospital, taxpayers provided UMC with $71 million to subsidize uncompensated and indigent care, as well as $45 million in loans that likely won’t ever be repaid. The losses are expected to continue years into the future.

The County Commission took one positive step last year to make the hospital viable: It effectively fired itself as the hospital’s board of directors and created a nine-member panel to oversee the hospital. That new board brings far more health care expertise to the table than did the elected members of the commission, who also are charged with shepherding the rest of county government.

The county wants the UMC board to be able to meet in secret and keep some of its records confidential. The county argues that SB33 is necessary to allow UMC to better compete with privately operated hospitals by denying them the ability to learn of UMC business initiatives.

Therefore, SB33 would allow the UMC board to make secret “strategic plans” that involve the creation of new programs, services or treatments; records related to a change in the use of existing facilities; or the acquisition of new facilities if there “is a reasonable likelihood that disclosure … would enable any person in competition with the county hospital to use information in the strategic plan for commercial purposes.” The board of hospital trustees also would be allowed to meet in closed session to receive reports, discuss or modify the strategic plan.

Under SB33, UMC could negotiate and prepare contracts for everything from managed care to buying a hospital in secret, with the public only learning about the deals when the board of trustees meets to approve them.

The creation of an unelected board to captain the hospital doesn’t change the fact that UMC is a public hospital with a budget that’s bailed out by taxpayers every year. The public must have a say in decisions that involve the expenditure of their money, or decisions that might require even greater expenditures of their money.

Anytime the public is shut out of government business, the bureaucracy becomes less accountable to the people it serves. The claim that transparency puts UMC at a competitive disadvantage is bogus. In fact, because taxpayers can always be tapped to make UMC whole, the hospital enjoys a huge competitive advantage over private hospitals. Openness is non-negotiable, especially when a government entity loses hundreds of millions of dollars, .

On Feb. 11, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee took no action on SB33. Chairman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, should keep SB33 locked in his desk. It’s an assault on the public trust.