Karla's Kolumn

After more than a year of working on four health care facilities in Wyoming, the Wyoming Task Force on Department of Health Facilities finally ruled out one option for the Wyoming Retirement Center, the option to close the facility entirely.

The future of the state facility in Basin is still up in the air and will be until a decision from the Wyoming Legislature, which could come during the 2016 budget session.

Still on the table for the task force is privatizing the facility. They will be meeting in Cheyenne in January to finalize a recommendation for the Legislature before the budget session begins Feb. 8. The best scenario for Basin, for the residents at the WRC and for Wyoming, is to leave the facility as it is.

Health Department Director Tom Forslund told the task force earlier this week, “With the new (Medicaid) rate implemented starting July 1 of this calendar year, that revenue has now increased for this facility. I don’t think there will need to be a subsidy from the state’s general fund for the operation of this facility going forward.”

If the state’s concern is funding, by Forslund’s statement, part of that concern is being alleviated with the new Medicaid rate. The state has already in recent years, put money into major repairs in the facility.

But the biggest concern is with the “safety net” residents — the residents that other nursing homes can’t or won’t admit. Heather Babbitt, senior administrator for the Wyoming Department of Health Aging Division said last year that the WRC takes some residents who are difficult to place elsewhere, for a variety of reasons that include difficult behaviors or having been referred by the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

Where do these residents go? The reason the WRC takes these residents in is because others won’t, including tax-supported facilities and private facilities. That begs the question if you privatize the WRC, what happens to these residents? Who will take them in? The state can’t force a private company to do it.

Private companies are going to do what makes them the biggest profit. Residents needing additional care or supervision means additional costs and that means it will cut into their profits, which means, more than likely, they won’t accept them.

Our state government should know by experience private companies don’t like to invest in things unless there is money to be made. Consider the fact that we only have one insurance company as part of the federal Health Care Marketplace operating in Wyoming. Or how about when Qwest got out of the Big Horn Basin many years ago because they didn’t want to spend the money on the upgrades needed (thus we have TCT and RT).

Rep. Elaine Harvey told Washakie Development Association Director Le Ann Chenoweth in an email that they already had interest for privatization. And, they may have, but for how long? Until the facility needs a major upgrade? Are those companies willing to continue to provide a home for the “difficult” residents?

What happens if in two, three or five years down the road the company decides it’s not profitable. Will they try to sell it or just close it?

What happens is Basin’s economy is impacted considerably with loss of jobs, loss of people in the community as those employees will have to seek employment elsewhere. What happens is many residents in the WRC will be displaced.

The staff and the residents are a part of the community in Basin. The staff bring the residents to football games and basketball games to support the youth, the director drives the bus for the tour of Christmas lights each year. They are active in the community.

Any change from what is currently will change the Basin community.

The state is not “competing” with private industry as some will argue. The state is providing a service to residents in the state. Isn’t it one of the duties of the state to provide for the health, welfare and safety of the residents in Wyoming? How does any option, beside continuing to operate the WRC as it is currently, accomplish those things?

I encourage the task force to consider their own director’s comments about revenues, consider the impact on the residents at the WRC and make the only decision that makes sense — leave the WRC alone.