I am a Nurse for you. As a patient, You are important to me. It's my job as a Nurse to address issues that arise and resolve them so that you, the patient, are satisified. Please bring to our attention any issue that you feel can be improved upon.

I know that Mercy Hospital is remodeling so that we can provide you with private rooms and more comfort as well as state of the art facilities.
I have worked with Dean Doctors and Mercy Doctors. Both facilities have excellent physicians.
However, I will be staying at Mercy Hospital when St.Mary's Janesville opens.

I see the Mercy VP's have been posting again.....

As with any industry, the more the options, the less the price tag.

God forbid that Medicare/Medicaid is the only insurance reimburser! They pay pennies on the dollar for services. Both groups tend to be the highest utilizers of medical services and essentially the rest of us have to pay to make up the difference; another reason costs are high. There are more manufacturers and employers in town that offer insurance than you think.

So now Janesville will have two major hospitals, and yet there is little to no manufacturing base in Janesville. Will everyone in Janvesille be employed in health-care eventually? It seems like an infinite loop. Where is the money actually going to come from? Pension plans and Medicare?

Neweyes has pretty much summed up some of biggest problems in today's healthcare environment. Not the only problems but probably the largest. Pateints use healthcare much more than previous generations and healthcare providers need to provide more care to cover their butts. Fix these two issues and we will have solved most of the problem.

After working in health care for 25 years, I can tell you that many people use very poor decision making in when and how they utilize health care. In the "old days", you paid a monthly premium which essentially only covered hospitalization and maybe a portion of your medications. Office visits came out of your pocket and people used a LOT more judgement and common sense about coming in. With HMO and PPO's, people are under the assumption they have carte blanche in their health care because routine care is "free". They utilize it with significantly greater frequency for simple complaints that are usually self resolving. Everything needs an antibiotic and expensive test. Health Care providers are under the constant fear they will be sued and do many more tests than are really necessary "to cover their butts". People are no longer willing to accept the wait, watch and see attitude. So now the common cold ends up costing $500 for an unnecessary office visit, chest x-ray and antibiotic. If they had only waited an additional week, it would have gone away on it's own probably 95% of the time.

So it's not the hospital competitiion that drives up costs, it's the health care consumer. That, and if they'd all quit reading foolish "ladies magazines" that convinces the reader they may die soon of some rare ailment unless checked thoroughly and immediately.

Market needs to be looked at from more than a financial aspect. If I were having a baby or had a medical emergency today, I could drive 18 miles to Mercy or about 22 miles to St Marys in Madison. Given the care I've seen and experienced at both facilities, the choice would be obvious, we would be driving up 14 to Madison. It will be nice to have an option in Janesville. To put it in the automotive terms you discussed, it's like having two cars in front of you that are the exact same price. How do you decide which one you're going to buy? You look at the features and dependability and make an informed decision.
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Also, bh is correct on the billing aspect. When you have a service completed, there is a fairly standard billed price. From there, discounts are applied which are negotiated with various facilities. If you go to a Dean facility and have Dean insurance, you will wind up paying less out of pocket than if you go to a Mercy facility and you have Dean insurance because your percentage stays the same but the total cost is lower.

Long Time Gone is correct in pointing out that the market for health care is not a free market in any sense of the word and that consumers have little if any choice.
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The reason is that we completely turn those decisions over to others when we ask them to pay the bills for us. It is, in fact, our money that is being spent but we have given up control over how it is spent. We don't ask how much anything is going cost and we rarely even look at the bill when it is all over.
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The solution to our looming health care crisis is going to be in finding ways to turn control of spending over to the actual consumers of the services where it belongs.

Hospitals may not "compete", but health systems do. Mercy and Dean have been competitors for years. Mercy has had a monopoly on hospital service in Janesville and could charge Dean Health Insurance significantly more than they would charge other insurers (and as far as I understand it they do). Thus it is entirely reasonable to believe that for Dean Health Insurance the delivery at the new hospital will be cheaper than it cost them at Mercy.

Of course you are correct that there is little in the way of market data available for consumers to differentiate between health systems and hospitals. But it is getting better. Check out http://www.wchq.org for rankings of Wisconsin Health Care providers in various categories. The federal government is also trying to force more transparency in Medicare and Medicaid service quality. It's going to take a while, but at least it's getting better.

Anyone who believes hospitals "compete" in the marketplace, like GM v. Ford, is sadly mistaken.
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What, you think having a baby at Mercy will now be cheaper than at the new Dean facility? Cancer treatment? CAT scans?
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Why do you think there is no menu of services with price tags attached like a restaurant, provided to patients who are told they need an appendectomy?
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You think you can visit 2 hospitals and negotiate a best price, like Fagan v. Burtness Chevrolet?
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Our system of health care is simply not market driven...consumers have no say in determining the bottom line of their medical bills - doctors affix costs that then are scrutinized by insurance carriers and in many cases, Medicare, or BadgerCare, or some other government-run instition.
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$80 million + $60 million = $140 million in Dean bricks and mortar. Those costs need to be paid by someone. Who?

The Wright Road bus already goes past the site.

Duplicate what services? we need a new hospital and service as to the monopoly of one here We need a choice as to the care we get without having to got to another city. And with the recent cuts in this area the need intensifies as to the care for elderly and poor and insurance (med asst) that dont meet requirements of costs (IN MY OPINION)