Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Ballad Merger III: Reshuffling, Reconstruction and Repurposing

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Norton Community Hospital

    by  Carol J. Bova

    When Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System merged to create Ballad Health in 2018, the healthcare companies justified the consolidation with the argument that the ability to cut costs and rationalize delivery of health services would yield tangible benefits to patients in Southwest Virginia and Northeastern Tennessee.

    The previous article in this series, “Cuts and Consolidations,” detailed how  Ballad Health bolstered finances through shared value-based payment savings, bond refinancing, staff reductions and closures of off-site facilities. This article, Part III, shows how the company acted to lower costs and enhance revenue by consolidating medical services, repurposing hospitals, introducing telemedicine, and implementing a new IT system.

    The Virginia Cooperative Agreement, which outlined the requirements of Virginia regulators, allowed repurposing as long as certain “essential services” were retained. Deploying telemedicine and rotating specialty clinics in rural hospitals would help it meet the requirement. (more…)

  • VDOE Regulation Officially Nonsensical

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    by

    sherlockj

    Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane

    by James C. Sherlock

    I am a reasonably experienced and educated man, but sometimes I need help.

    I just read the Virginia regulation 8VAC20-23-190. Professional studies requirements for PreK-12, special education, secondary grades 6-12, and adult education endorsements.  

    I know, you don’t have to say it.

    But anyway, I read it. The full regulation directs how Virginia teacher candidates must be educated. It directs a formal syllabus of 18 or 21 semester hours. VDOE swears that VDOE and the Board of Education wrote it, not the University of Virginia education school, and I take them at their word.

    When I was done, I had to go back to Part 5. Classroom and behavior management: 3 semester hours. A key element:

    “This area shall address diverse approaches based upon culturally responsive behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and ecological theory and practice.”

    (more…)

  • Crazy Talk: Jennifer McClellan

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Sen. Jennifer McClellan. Photo credit: Virginia Mercury

    by James A. Bacon

    If you’re looking for craziness in Virginia, it’s not hard to find. By “crazy,” I mean disconnected from reality. Crazy people are commonly found among the homeless, in state mental institutions, and in the General Assembly. This gem comes from Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, during a televised Democratic Party gubernatorial debate.

    “I had to have the conversation with my 10-year-old son last week when he asked me, ‘Mommy, someone not that much older than me was killed by a police officer. Could that happen to me?’”

    “And I looked at him and said, ‘I will do everything I can to keep that from happening to you.’ Because there are too many people who call the police for help, and are killed. I had an intern who was in the middle of a mental health crisis, and his grandmother was afraid to call the police because she was afraid that he would be killed. There are too many people who are afraid of the police, and we have to address that problem.”

    I’m sorry, but this is a distorted sense of reality. Philip Bump with the Washington Post, who is as woke as an over-caffeinated night watchman, counted 22 children killed by police since 2015. Of those, a quarter were White. That averages out to about three Black or Hispanic kids per year — three too many, to be sure, but not exactly an epidemic in a nation with 47 million Black people, and certainly no reason for any child to live in fear. If you factor out kids who were armed with guns or had the misfortune to live in Chicago, a free-fire zone, the odds of a 10-year-old getting killed by police in America are essentially zero. (more…)

  • The Proper Role of Virginia’s Attorney General

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Jack White

    By now, Virginia voters have heard from many candidates running for Attorney General making sweeping promises about policy changes they will implement as AG or talking about being the chief prosecutor for Virginia. With due respect to the other candidates in the race, I feel compelled to reiterate what is and what is not the role of the Virginia Attorney General.

    The Office of the Attorney General is established in the Virginia Constitution with a clearly defined role. That is to defend the state in criminal appeals and suits against the state, provide legal advice and representations in court for the state and the Governor, provide legal counsel and official opinions to the General Assembly, and defend the constitutionality of state laws. This Attorney General is intended to be the Chief Advocate for the state of Virginia.

    This is not a policy-making role. I have heard my fellow candidates talk about everything from their vision for health care to policing reform – all of which are functions of the legislature, not the Office of the Attorney General. One candidate also seems to be under the impression the Attorney General is a prosecutorial role, when in reality it is not. (more…)

  • Alexandria Stands with Government Unions, Not Workers

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by F. Vincent Vernuccio

    In mid-April, the City of Alexandria passed an ordinance allowing government unions to bargain with the city. Unfortunately, many of the ordinance’s provisions are lopsided: they grant special advantages for government unions to easily organize public employees and trap workers into paying dues.

    Alexandria’s lopsided ordinance. Alexandria’s ordinance makes it is easy for a union to petition for an election, which the ordinance says may happen in several ways, “including, without limitation, electronic authorizations and voice authorizations.” Once there is a determination by a labor relations administrator or the city manager that a majority of employees have given authorization, no one can challenge the petition.

    In a sense, if a union were to use ambiguous language to trick an employee over the phone, and that employee were to respond with “yes,” the union may show that the employee wants the union to represent them – even though that may not really be the case if the employee is not informed of both their rights and of all the facts. Once the LRA makes a determination, the employee would have no recourse to say that verbal “yes” was not what they meant, or to rescind their indication of approval. (more…)

  • Shots for American Kids While Indians Are Dying for the Vaccine?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    It was yet another gird-your-loins day in Virginia on Thursday.

    Gov. Ralph Northam held a briefing on COVID-19, which could only mean one thing: more disappointing news from the Rajah of Richmond.

    Northam said he may lift his now-14 month-old emergency order- – an abuse of power by any standard — in June.

    If Virginians continue to get vaccinated in numbers that please him, that is.

    No, he will not tell us what that number is. He’ll know it when he sees it.

    Alas, masks will still be with us. After a series of idiotic rules from Richmond — no sitting on the beach, no music on the beach, school closings, gym closings, curfews, alcohol sale restrictions — Northam is now deferring to the nuts at the CDC to decide when masks can come off.

    Lucky us.

    Best of all, the governor is giddy at the notion of Virginia’s children getting vaccinated against a disease that poses almost no risk to them. So far he said, 63,000 Virginians aged 16 and 17 have gotten the shot! He can’t wait till it’s offered to 12-year-olds. (more…)

  • The Ballad Merger II: Cuts and Consolidations

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Carol J. Bova

    Upon the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System in 2018, the first order of business for the newly created Ballad Health was shoring up its finances. If Ballad wasn’t successful at this, it would not have the resources to invest in the new services, facilities, programs, and equipment to improve community health it had promised as a condition of the merger.

    Not all of Ballad’s actions were well-received. Some changes triggered community protests and county objections in its Tennessee and Virginia service territories. But the company did achieve its aim of bolstering cash flow. Here’s how Ballad went about it.

    Job cuts. Financial conditions were adverse from the beginning. In an April 16, 2018 letter to the Tennessee Commissioner of Health, ten weeks into the merger, Ballad wrote that “due to the increased cost of labor, pharmaceuticals and supplies, and the continued shift to the outpatient setting from inpatient, operating income of the combined systems has declined by 123% since the same time in the prior year.” (more…)

  • Virginia’s Updated “Regulations Governing Educational Services for Gifted Students” Has Temporarily Disappeared

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    by

    sherlockj

    James Lane, Secretary of Public Obfuscation and Obstruction Education

    by James C. Sherlock

    Sometimes you just need to go to the documents to see what the Virginia Department of Education is up to. This example will tell you everything you want to know.

    Each agency proposing a new or revised regulation is required by Virginia law to post a “Proposed Agency Background Document” on the “Virginia Regulatory Town Hall” website.

    Turns out that those postings are occasionally fabulous. This is one of those times. One can see the wheels turning, including when the wheels go off the rails.

    I have dissected one of particular interest to parents – Regulations Governing Educational Services for Gifted Students [8 VAC 20 ‑ 40]. 

    (more…)

  • Give ‘Em An Earful

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Fairfax County Public Schools is committed to achieving “educational equity” in which every FCPS student thrives academically, socially, and emotionally, and is empowered as “the next generation of change leaders for a more just world,” declares a communique to parents issued today.

    A key strategy in advancing that vision is changing teaching practices along with what is taught, states the message from Superintendent Scott Braband. “FCPS will begin by revising the existing Controversial Issues Policy and developing a new Anti-Racism Anti-Bias Education Curriculum Policy.”

    If you are a Fairfax County resident and fear this new policy becoming a tool of left-wing indoctrination, you’d better speak up. FCPS is conducting a survey to gauge public attitudes. You can take it here.

    — JAB

  • Arlington County School Wi-Fi Crashes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    This just came in from a Bacon’s Rebellion correspondent around 10:50 a.m.

    “Arlington wifi was out at all schools for the first hour of school today. At home students just sitting there. In school now totally dependent on powerpoint, google slides etc for instruction.”

    There is no acknowledgement on the Arlington County Public Schools home page yet, and local news media has not yet reported anything.

    This incident may be a fluke. I don’t want to read too much into it. But it could feed into the narrative that the people running Virginia’s public schools can’t get anything right. K-12 schools are shaping up as the biggest election issue of the 2021 electoral season, and this time the argument isn’t, “We need more money for schools.”

    12:25 p.m. Update: Wi-Fi restored.

    — JAB

  • Bacon Bits Does Electric Grid

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: “Electricity Sales Forecast for Virginia: 2020-2050”

    Boom times ahead for electricity. Electricity demand in Virginia will grow 30%, give or take, over the next 15 years as more energy-consuming data centers are built and more Virginians drive electric vehicles, writes Bill Shobe, a University of Virginia professor who supports the transition to a net-zero-carbon electric grid, in a new report. Electricity use could grow by more than 78% by 2050, the state’s deadline for achieving net zero. The increase will occur despite gains in energy efficiency that have flattened electricity demand growth in recent years.

    Where will all that power come from?

    Relicensing the nukes. Dominion Energy’s four nuclear units at the Surry and North Anna power stations produce about one-third of the utility’s electricity. The units, originally designed to last 40 years, are licensed to operate another 20 years. Dominion is seeking regulatory approval to extend the licenses yet another 20 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has recommended granting that approval for the two Surry units. But some environmentalists are opposed. (more…)

  • Race and Redemption

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Bacon’s Rebellion normally does not republish campaign literature. We happily accept op-ed pieces from political candidates as long as they address substantive public policy issues, but otherwise I like to keep a healthy distance from office seekers. Today I make a partial exception. Jack White, a Northern Virginia attorney seeking the Republican nomination for Attorney General, has written the most compelling campaign letter I have seen this year. I don’t endorse White because we don’t do endorsements. But his message — in which a Black man critiques Critical Race Theory — is one that transcends the 2021 campaign season. His perspective needs to be heard. What follows is an extract of that letter with the campaign rhetoric omitted. — JAB

    Jack White

    I want to tell you about the true source of my conservatism, because that is the best way to know me. My conservatism is inextricably intertwined with my faith. After all, if government were the solution to every problem in our nation, then why would we follow God?!?

    When you understand the Gospel, then you understand that it is all about Life & Redemption: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …and the Word became flesh, and we beheld His glory.” That is Life: God giving us Christ incarnate. Life is not just an idea; it is the beginning of the Gospel Story. Then sin entered the picture, requiring Redemption. Christ came for that very purpose. As a result, everything I do focuses on God’s precious gift of Life and the reason for Christ: Redemption. (more…)

  • Fall Elections Threaten Northam’s Radical Education Team

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    by

    sherlockj

    Qarni

    by James C. Sherlock

    Politics is a contact sport, and the two people in the Northam administration most likely to be blindsided are Secretary of Education Atif Qarni and Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane.

    I say blindsided — they won’t see it coming — because the hits will come from their own team. This isn’t about whether a reader thinks they have earned it or not. It is about politics.

    Lane

    I think it likely that Glenn Youngkin will be the Republican nominee for Governor and Jason Miyares the Republican pick for Attorney General.

    If so, three things are likely to happen. First, both races will be competitive. Second, voters will turn out in droves in protest of the education policies of the Northam administration. Finally, If Terry McAuliffe, the presumptive Democratic nominee, feels threatened, he will flush Qarni and Lane one way or the other.

    They should freshen up their resumes. (more…)

  • The Ballad Merger — A Leap of Faith by Two States

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Ballad Health hospital market area in Tennessee and Virginia

    by Carol J. Bova

    In April, 2015, two Tennessee-based not-for-profit hospital organizations with a 75% market share in Southwest Virginia said a merger would allow them “to address the serious health issues affecting the region and to be among the best in the nation in terms of quality, affordability and patient satisfaction.” The merger  would involve 21 hospitals in 21 counties in two states, and about 960,000 people.

    The FTC opposed the merger. The commission said that courts and antitrust agencies view an increase of more than 200 points on a standard measure of market concentration — the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) — as likely to be anticompetitive. The new company’s post-merger score would increase 2,441 points.

    In the hope that this merged company might solve overwhelming regional health disparities, Virginia and Tennessee ignored the FTC and took a leap of faith. Both states passed legislation to allow cooperative agreements for a merger of the two systems. To confer immunity from federal and state antitrust laws, the legislation provided for state regulation and active supervision to ensure that the benefits would outweigh any disadvantages. (more…)

  • Why Can’t We Have a Governor Like DeSantis?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Help me out here. I’m trying to decide which of the seven deadly sins I’m committing every time I see Gov. Ron DeSantis on TV or in print and wish he were governor of Virginia.

    It is covetousness? Or envy?

    Well, dictionary.com defines the first as “eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth or possessions.”

    So I guess it’s envy I’m experiencing. Mea culpa.

    I can’t help it. It started last summer when DeSantis announced that Florida kids could play youth sports. Yep, even contact sports.

    It was May 22, 2020 when The Tampa Bay Times reported this shocking news:

    Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that he was ending all restrictions on youth activities across the state, including camps and youth sports. The declaration was the governor’s latest move to wake Florida from its coronavirus-induced economic slumber.

    (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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