Thread by @MattCalcara

"WHAT THE ACTUAL F&CK WHY IS THIS NOT A HUGE STORY IN THE KS SENATE RACE!?!?"

A thread.

The headline would be:

"Kansas Taxpayers Bailed Out Roger Marshall's Hospital in Secret Deal!"

This is actually worse than the time he tried to run over his neighbor.

Welcome to the year 2009!

Great Bend physicians, including obstetrician Dr. Roger Marshall, create a physician-owned, FOR-PROFIT hospital in the city of 16,000, which is already served by the 99-bed regional medical center that grew out of one founded by nuns, actually.

Within a very short time, Marshall's for-profit hospital drives the non-profit one out of business by cherry-picking the most profitable cases.

They can do this easily b/c Great Bend is small enough that local doctors will often work or consult at both facilities.

Within a year, the non-profit hospital, 99-bed hospital closes its doors, leaving only the physician-owned, 33-bed, for-profit hospital partly owned by Roger Marshall as the only healthcare game in town.

News story from nonpartisan KS Health Institute: khi.org/news/article/n…

Hooray for Roger Marshall!

Now with the pesky nuns & non-profits out of the way, he can get down to his real business: making money off of desperately sick Kansans & their families!

Ka-ching, baby!

There is a slight unforseen problem, though.

Without a non-profit hospital in town to care for the unprofitable/poor patients, some of these Kansans in need of medical care start showing up at Dr. Marshall's hospital.

EW, GROSS! UNPROFITABLE POOR PEOPLE WANTING HELP!

But since Marshall's hospital is the only one around now, the poor & the sick keep showing up & his cash-machine healthcare monopoly is unable to charge exorbitant rates to insurance companies thanks to the recently-passed Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.

The ACA makes up for this loss in revenue by forcing people to at least have SOME insurance (Medicaid is the insurance of last resort for the poor). So hospitals cannot charge ASTRONOMICAL rates to the insured to cover the costs of the uninsured.

Instead, since almost everyone has insurance, the hospital gets paid at least SOMETHING by nearly all its patients. So the ACA spreads costs around while offering more Americans coverage AND reducing the costs of healthcare AND hospitals stay in business.

Win-win-win, right?

Wrong! Thanks to Sam Brownback & GOP legislators, Kansas does not expand Medicaid.

The number of uninsured Kansans keeps growing & they keep showing up at Roger Marshall's hospital expecting doctors to treat them.

The NERVE of these working-class Kansans to expect healthcare!

Rural hospitals across Kansas suffer financial losses as the number of uninsured Kansans grows.

This bad for Roger Marshall!

He built his hospital to make money, not be a charity for the poor & desperate like those damn nuns! WTF?!?

But they cannot close their own physician-owned hospital. That would basically mean firing themselves over their own financial mismanagement of their business.

And there are no other hospitals around to hire them b/c they drove them out of business.

D'oh!

This is not good!

Roger Marshall is now stuck w/a loss-making hospital slowly bleeding him dry & making him poor. The horror!

But he cannot close it b/c then he loses his investment & his job & there are zero local employment options for doctors. He'd become poor even faster!

So it's 2015.

Roger feels like he is totally screwed and he really kinda is, unless Kansas passes Medicaid expansion (unlikely in 2015 & still iffy!). Roger is pissy all the time, leading to a conflict w/his neighbor, whom he nearly runs over in his truck. Oopsies.

Fortunately, one of his business partners cuts a deal w/the local prosecutor so that Marshall doesn't face attempted vehicular manslaughter charges* for this.

He is just fined instead.

*I am not a lawyer so I just made up the name of this crime.

Meanwhile, Roger is increasingly unable to afford his country club membership fees.

How can he get out of this pickle?!

He runs for Congress.

And thanks to the unpopularity of the incumbent & lack of scrutiny over his own foibles caused by death of local media, Roger wins!

He is now Congressman Marshall instead of Dr. Marshall, which is effing sweet.

So he gets paid to be a Congressman, which helps, but he is still saddled w/his damn hospital that poor Kansans keep showing up at! Ugh.

But w/his elected office, Roger has some new options!

1) He could try to get the state to pass Medicaid expansion, but that'd jeopardize his political office & it would keep him afloat but not rich. Remember, Roger became a doc to become rich off of poor Kansans' illnesses so being rich is Priority #1.

But there is another option.

2) He could use his power to induce the government's non-profit & well-managed KU Med system to buy his loss-making hospital, protecting his money (possibly even enhancing it!).

Yay!!!! Roger stayed rich & kept his office & can keep ignoring poor people!!!

The terms of the sale of the hospital are never publicly disclosed (attn: actual reporters, I cannot find them, but you might be able to!) because... reasons?

hutchnews.com/news/20180801/…

But thanks to his amazing success at screwing over poor Kansans while preserving his own wealth, position & privilege, Roger is clearly a man on the rise in the Republican Party.

I mean...he LIVED their ideals!

Roger thus wins the primary for an even higher office! WOW!

To win, of course, Roger had to shed his last bit of human decency--the Hippocratic oath doctors take to do no harm--and peddle dubious medicines & encourage poor public health practices. More poor Kansans die.

But Roger can keep diving into his Scrooge McDuck money pit!

The only thing that Roger has to do now is beat a Democrat in a US Senate race in KS. No GOP nominee has failed to do this in nearly 100 years!

There is just 1 problem.

That Democrat, @BarbaraBollier, is also a doctor.

And a popular elected official + insanely good fundraiser.

And she used her power to try to help working-class Kansans and rural hospitals by expanding Medicaid.

She is scandal-free, honest, accountable, a good listener & genuinely gives AF about other people.

But Roger knows he can win if ppl forget or are never told about his past.

I, for one, am tired of working-class Kansans (and increasingly, even middle-class Kansans) getting screwed to preserve the Scrooge McDuck money pit of people like Roger Marshall.

We need to vote for the Lady Doctor who puts the lives of Kansans above making $: @BarbaraBollier.

So I am going to keep tweeting about how Roger Marshall values HIS money more than OUR lives.

We are in a class war, my fellow Kansans...even if we may not want it & never asked for it.

Even if the rich are like the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor.

We. Can. Win. This.

But we are only going to beat the absolute juggernaut of GOP money if we pull off a WW2-style mobilization.

If u have money, donate.

If u have time, volunteer.

Have neither?

Register to vote & request a mail ballot at ksvotes.org.

We. Can. Win. This.