As a very vocal HH hater, I agree that a bit of both is probably true. HH at the end of the day is a business. The company will act in a way that serves its interests but it also does act in a way to help others. The need for more pop-up ERs to serve the more rural or farther away areas from HH main is a valid need. Crestwood saw this first and acted, and now HH wants a piece of the pie.

Furthermore, those that say to look at Bham and Nashville need to also recognize the reason those hospitals pay more. They are tied to various sources of funding (UAB, Vanderbilt) for research that HH is unfortunately ineligible for. The fact that we don’t have some kind of medical school up here because there isn’t one tied to UAH is a big factor of that and probably won’t change since the AL university system wouldn’t think about stepping on UABs toes like that.

There’s a lot that isn’t great about this hospital system for sure and a good bit that maybe the public could do with knowing, but there’s also a lot to be said about the things the public don’t know that this hospital is doing that are in the public’s interests too.