Nearly 50 people gathered at Faribault City Hall Wednesday night to learn more about District One Hospital's pending merger with Allina Health. During his presentation, Pribyl reviewed District One's dismal financial status while also showcasing how the hospital is trying to turn itself around by slashing the budget, improving technology and, most notably, merging with Allina. Wednesday's meeting was the second forum held with the public. Pribyl and members of the hospital's Board of Directors also hosted a meeting with Rice County elected officials and have gone to service club meetings like Rotary Club and the Knights of Columbus to discuss the same topics.

Much is wrong with the process of pricing and providing health care in America. The National Nurses United, the largest nurses organization, recently released a study that shows the top 100 most expensive U.S. Hospitals have a charge-to-cost ratio of 765 percent and higher. The worst offender in Ohio is right here in Summit County – Summa Barberton at a mind-numbing 654 percent. It is followed in fourth place by Summa Western Reserve at a whopping 577 percent. What has become obvious is the health-care establishment here and across the country is more concerned with profits than patients.

National Nurses United executive director RoseAann DeMoro, whose union has organized 7,000 nurses in southern states like Texas and Florida in the past three years, asked why Democratic politicians did not forcefully challenge Corker, who threatened that unionization would destroy jobs, and the right. “Why aren’t Democrats 100 percent for labor?” she asked. “Where are our allies? Who’s standing with us visibly, forcibly? Democrats know the value of organized labor. They might say it sometime.”

Workers at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., last week narrowly rejected joining the United Auto Workers. That was a setback for labor which was looking for an organizing victory in a southern state. The AFL-CIO is holding its winter meetings this week in Houston. The movement says its efforts to organize across the South continue despite the high profile defeat at the VW plant. RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, tells of sizable organizing gains her union has made in the South over the last few years.

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the National Nurses United, said her union has organized 7,000 nurses over the past three years in Florida and Texas combined. The frustrations that drove those nurses to organize are no different than gripes that nurses in California had before they joined the union, Ms. DeMoro said. “Nurses are angry everywhere,” she said, calling claims of regional divides “artificial.” The union is currently trying to organize 4,000 nurses in Orlando who work for one of the state’s largest not-for-profit hospital systems, she said, and added that they are receptive.