The City Of Chicago Spent A Cool 66 Millions Dollars On A Coronavirus Hospital That Has Treated A Whopping 38 Patients
Just absolutely the most classic Chicago story ever. A city that is going broke spending $66M to turn McCormick Place into a tent hospital is just absolutely preposterous. When WSD and I sat down with the Major in the visitors locker room in Soldier Field some people got mad at us because we didn't ask her tough questions as if that is our job. Having said that, if were given another opportunity to sit down with Lori for more than the 7 minutes we got this situation would be on my check list.
“But, we see taxpayer money being spent and not used properly. $66 million and $1.7 million per patient is a lot of funding,” Brooks said, commenting on the city spending $66 million on an emergency hospital that only treated 38 COVID-19 patients.
According to Chicago Sun-Times, the federal government covered 75 percent of the costs, while the city denied that the money was spent in "vain."
Meantime, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker imposed new restrictions Sunday for southwestern Illinois after a spike of COVID-19 cases.
The response of "well, the Federal Gov't is going to cover 75% of the costs" as if that is supposed to make us feel better. I am not an expert on, well, anything. Common sense is where I try to live. I have a hard time reconciling math like this. A city that constantly says that they're broke and there's no money for teachers or other programs but then when they need $20M or whatever their final nut ends up being for a tent city hospital in a giant convention center to treat almost zero patients and they get that money no problem...it's hard for me. The government makes money seem fake.
Chicago doing Chicago things. I listened to an episode of The Daily by the NYT a few weeks ago and they have basically the EXACT same situation in New York. A giant expensive temporary hospital that was unable to really see any patients because it was illegal to transport patients there from another hospital due to a contract with a particular ambulance company. As a result you had more people dying in overcrowded hospitals because they couldn't get the attention they needed meanwhile there was a huge facility with doctors and nurses sitting around twiddling their thumbs. The economy has been grinded to a halt and money is getting lit on fire.
Anyways, if there is a good explanation for this stuff hit me up because I would LOVE for there to be one.