Sunday, July 6, 2008

SUNDAY NEWS

Its July 6 front page headlines "Faith not paying bills: Amish and Old Order Mennonites, who don't believe in health insurance, are facing personal and financial catastrophes."

WATCHDOG:
The title is disingenuous. What it should say is "Lancaster General Hospital has been price gouging Amish."

The article itself reports fairly and touches, if ever so gently, on posturings on the part of LGH. But unlike NewsLanc's forthcoming report on its month long analysis of why LGH is earning such phenomenal profits, the Sunday News simply reports what it no longer can avoid. Yet it has failed to undertake an investigate into the sources of LGH's phenomenal profits.

It took the Lancaster Newspapers nine days to report upon and largely regurgitate an article that ran in the Wall Street Journal on June 26th, and then only after prodding by the WATCHODG and our letter writers.

NewsLanc was referring to the inequitable billings prior to the WSJ article and reported and expanded upon the WSJ article within a day.

NewsLanc is working with officials at LGH to obtain as accurate information as the hospital is prepared to share. Ultimately, NewsLanc will have to go with the best information available. If any aspect turns out not to be totally accurate, it will be because of a failure to disclose by the public non-profit corporation.