Is anybody going to jail?

And until the legal smoke clears, we won't know what roles, if any, Chief Financial Officer Richard Powell and Chief Operating Officer Marlo Hodges (on paid leave, last we heard) might have played in the corruption scandal and whether they, too, will be axed.

Whenever county leaders put their brains together, we're likely to find out what they'll do to help UMC weather this latest financial storm. Will the County Commission take money from some other part of the budget—proverbially robbing Peter to pay Paul? Four years ago they approved a $38 million taxpayer bailout. Should they do so again, will the public revolt, or be resigned to the fact that the Valley's lone public hospital is a financially draining but vitally necessary burden?

Of course, none of this takes into account the unfinished business that involves making sure something like this never happens again—it wasn't supposed to happen after the 2003 bailout—and determining how UMC will operate going forward: Will it always be a pig suckling at the taxpayer teat, or can it be one of the nation's great public hospitals?