"Healthcare network says it may lay off hundreds" by Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | October 25, 2008
Cambridge Health Alliance, a key part of the Boston area's healthcare network, is warning that it may have to lay off hundreds of workers and consolidate operations because of deep cuts in state funding.
The healthcare network - which includes hospitals in Cambridge, Somerville, and Everett, as well as 20 community health centers - serves a disproportionately large share of the area's poor. It is operating on a $22 million deficit budget this year.
Always the first to get penetrated!!!!
In a stark memo to staffers, alliance CEO Dennis D. Keefe wrote that the Patrick administration's plan to slash $55 million from the organization's budget would "translate to a reduction of more than 20 percent of our workforce."
Governor Deval Patrick last week announced sweeping cuts that include nearly $300 million for healthcare spending to help close a $1.4 billion state budget gap. The alliance and Boston Medical Center were especially hard hit.
Of course, "flushing . . . millions of dollars away supporting a highly profitable industry" when it comes to $300 million in taxpayer dollars for Hollywood is o.k., and paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right, and the lottery shelling out "millions of dollars" for sports tickets for "lottery officials, their family members, and friends" is fine, and making interest payments to banks to the tune of "a staggering $22 billion" for the Big Pit and paying off banks like UBS, who can "demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January" while also receiving a "$179 million payment," while the state pension fund loses $1 billion dollars -- which still didn't stop the executive director from carving himself a nice "$64,000 bonus on top of his $322,000 annual salary." Oh, and did I not mention the golf courses, the tv ads, or the RECKLESS BORROWING while SITTING ON $2 BILLION DOLLARS! Need one final insult?: Massachusetts Gives More Money to Hollywood
Yup, but we gotta CUT HEALTH SERVICES that would cost a FRACTION of all that!!!
Even if the Alliance wins a reprieve from state cuts, it will still face difficult decisions next fiscal year because it is set to lose $94 million in Medicaid funding it has been receiving under the state's 2006 healthcare law. Lawmakers earmarked money for the Alliance and Boston Medical Center because both treat a disproportionately large number of low-income patients. But other hospitals have complained about being left out. The payments are slated to end next year.
The governor said he will not reimburse Boston Medical Center for $64 million in services it delivered to low-income Medicaid patients last fiscal year and will also cut $30 million in Medicaid rates for this fiscal year. --more--"
There is your GUVERNOR with a HEART, 'eh? And he's a DEMOCRAT?
