Health care: A little bit country or a little bit rock ‘n’ roll?

By Walker Duncan Posted on May 18, 2009 at 2:34 pm

There’s something smoldering in Cleveland. And no, it’s not the Cuyahoga River. It’s bitter gnawing jealousy.

In an utterly asinine quote, which this reporter somehow managed to miss the first time through the Cleveland NewsNet5 item, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones stated the following:

“I’m not terribly worried about the boast and the brag of those from Nashville. If we were building something for the Grand Ole Opry, they would have the edge on us. But Nashville is not known as an epicenter for health care as we are.”

While you let the mind-boggling hilarity of that sink in, we’ll go ahead and suggest that officials from the Nashville Health Care Council add Commissioner Jones’ name to its distribution list for the 2009 Health Care Family Tree. And maybe they could even staple a little note to it saying something like, “Your move, chief!”

To say that Nashville is not an epicenter of health care simply defies logic. Without getting into the broader issues involved, it makes nothing other than perfect sense that such a development would naturally seek out Nashville.

It’s not like they were out to make a television vehicle for this guy or a movie about a perennially down-and-out, yet lovable baseball team. Because in those cases, Cleveland might have an edge on us.

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Tags: Cleveland, commercial real estate, economic development, foot-in-mouth, Market Center Management Co. Ltd., Nashville Health Care Council, Peter Lawson Jones