UMC troubles noted in New York Times

In an op-ed ominously entitled "Making Murder Count":

An inability to effectively monitor our city’s population has likewise hampered New Orleans’s efforts to plan for our future health care needs, education needs and other essential services. Consultants have found, for example, that a hospital under construction is larger than needed for the number of people who actually live there.

One quibble...the hospital is not under construction.  That's a key fact to keep in mind.  Jerry Jones with the state specifically has not yet obtained permission to move into the construction phase, as he noted at the UMC Board meeting last week.  He must obtain permission from Joint Budget - and that won't happen, from what I understand, until a business plan is presented in September.

Additionally, I don't believe that LSU/state/UMC insistence on a 424-bed hospital stems from a misreading of population estimates at all.