EDITORIAL: A lesson for the billionaire government critics

Memo to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: Before you carry out your plans to privatize much of the federal government and purge it of numerous agencies and thousands of federal jobs, including many related to the health and well-being of millions of Americans, travel to Ozaukee County and visit the Lasata Senior Campus.

The two billionaires are in charge of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, an agency they regard as an oxymoron—their oft-repeated mantra is that government is inherently inefficient.

A 60-year-old government-run facility in Cedarburg, Wis., disproves that tired cliché. Lasata, owned by the people of Ozaukee County, is thriving as a business and as an institution that contributes importantly to the quality of life for elderly residents and their families.

Lasata provides a 100-bed skilled-care and rehabilitation nursing home, an assisted living complex and an apartment building for independent seniors. The three facilities brought in revenue during the first 11 months of 2024 that exceeded expenses by more than $1.6 million.

Lasata is making a profit for taxpayers, and it is accomplishing it at a time when the numbers of county-owned nursing homes are rapidly diminishing as unsustainable tax-subsidized services.

Lasata has had its ups and downs since the institution was founded in the 1960s—with large deficits in some years—but its current success grew out of a bold decision by the County Board some 25 years ago to invest in the facility even though it was a substantial drain on county tax revenue at the time.

The decision was based more on emotion than hard financial facts. In County Board debates, a number of supervisors expressed their support for carrying on the mission of Lasata as a responsibility to the people of the county who had supported the facility for decades with their taxes and in many cases depended on it for the care elderly family members.

County Administrator Jason Dzwinel described the county government’s approach to Lasata as a “philosophical commitment to ensuring that our citizens have an affordable option for senior care with above-average levels of care.”

The institution’s sustainability derives from the so-called continuum-of-care model for services to elderly citizens. Assisted and independent living options, with fees charged to private-pay and Medicare Lasata residents, balance high nursing home operating costs for serving patients who quality for Medicaid, which is inadequately supported by federal funding.

Dzwinel put it like this: “Not only does this approach allow campus residents to age in place, but it has generated revenues to offset losses due to low Medicaid rates.”

Lasata is on solid enough financial ground to expand again, this time with a 21-bed community-based residential facility to treat dementia patients. Construction will start in 2025. A business model shows the facility adding to Lasata’s positive revenue flow.

Addendum to the Musk-Ramaswamy memo: An analysis by WPR/Wisconsin Watch found that county-owned nursing homes are better staffed and have higher quality care than facilities owned by for-profit businesses.

It may go against the creed of billionaires, but governments can do some things better than businesses.