"Boston Medical to cut staff, services; Reductions likely to hurt patients with low income; Center will sever its ties with hospital in Quincy" by Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | December 18, 2008
Facing $114 million in state budget cuts, Boston Medical Center announced yesterday that 250 employees will be laid off or have their hours reduced and that patient services will be cut in key areas, including primary care, pediatrics, and geriatrics.
More than half of the hospital's patients are low-income residents, so the reductions are likely to hit hardest on the city's most vulnerable, the immigrants, poor families, and senior citizens who receive free or subsidized care at the hospital, patient advocates said. The cuts were to take effect immediately.
Hospital president and chief executive Elaine Ullian said they will, at a minimum, mean that patients will face longer waits for appointments and for phone calls to be answered. The medical center is seeing an unprecedented number of patients, and that has forced the institution to make tough choices, she said.
"Seventy-five percent of our pediatric service is for indigent children," Ullian said. "Eighty-three percent of our neonatal intensive care unit is Medicaid babies. Seventy-six percent of obstetrics is [for] Medicaid women. So we decided to diminish the access, so everyone takes a hit, but not shut down an entire service."
TRILLIONS for WARS, TRILLIONS for BANKS, how many times I gotta type it?
While declining to say how many layoffs there will be, Ullian said a significant number of interpreters will be cut from the staff. The 30 percent of the patient population that does not speak English will have to wait longer for language services, she said.
The hospital also announced it would end its support next June of Quincy Medical Center, another institution serving many immigrants of limited means....
Why do I get the feeling that this is only a front-page article because it is immigrants getting the cut on health care? Will the Boston Globe please stop pushing the agenda? Please?
Oh, and for those thinking I'm denying people health care, I suggest you watch Sicko and see U.S. Hospitals Dump Uninsured Immigrants.
The worsening economy has produced widespread job losses, costing many their health insurance. That is boosting the ranks of those relying on publicly subsidized healthcare....
SEIU and the consumer group Health Care for All are lobbying Governor Deval Patrick and state lawmakers to use federal funds, expected as part of a national economic stimulus package, to make up for the state cuts in healthcare services announced earlier this year, including those at Boston Medical Center....
Everybody thinks that stimulus is going to pay all their bills; ain't enough money in the world to do that, Amurkns!
But we are a model!
"Mass. health plan has national appeal; Seen as model for 47 million uninsured" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | December 19, 2008
WASHINGTON - .... Massachusetts also required almost all individuals to buy insurance.
Sig Heil!
Obama in his campaign said insurance should only be required for children, not adults, but the concept of an "individual mandate" for insurance may be gaining steam: Baucus and Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, have endorsed the idea. And last month, America's Health Insurance Plans, the nation's largest insurance lobby, promised to stop denying coverage to those who are sick - another key component of the Massachusetts plan and a top priority for Obama and Congressional leaders - as long as the law required everyone to buy health insurance....
Excuse me? Aren't those the people that NEED COVERAGE MOST?
What kind of HEALTH CARE SYSTEM DENIES PEOPLE COVERAGE?!!
Oh, the PROFIT-MAKING KIND, I see!!!!
US Senator Judd Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, however, said the Massachusetts plan may have some valuable ideas but the jury is still out on its cost-effectiveness. He said he is wary of a forcing people into buying more expensive insurance than they need.
Yup!!! Related: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Congress is unlikely to adopt an exact replica of the Massachusetts law for the nation, specialists say. The state started out with fewer uninsured people than the nation as a whole, and more residents already had very generous health insurance coverage, so requiring all Americans to have the same comprehensive insurance as Massachusetts residents could be expensive and politically treacherous.
Massachusetts also had pools of federal money available for investing in health care....
Get those printing presses going, Feds!
EVERYBODY thinks the OBAMA STIMULUS is THEIR SAVIOR!!
Pfffffffftttt!!!!
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Update:
You definitely do not want Massachusetts' universal health plan, America!!
Why must the papers continually lie and push corporate agendas? Can't they tell the truth or work for the public good on any issue?
This article may appear critical; however, it is after the Globe helped push for the damn law (think ethanol, etc), the amnesiatic hypocrites!!!!
"Fueled by profits, a healthcare giant takes aim at suburbs; Partners HealthCare's push has community hospitals running scared, and crying foul
This story was reported by Globe Spotlight Team members Scott Allen, Marcella Bombardieri, Michael Rezendes, and editor Thomas Farragher, as well as Liz Kowalczyk and Jeffrey Krasner of the Globe staff. It was written by Farragher and Kowalczyk.
Second in a series of occasional articles
It was a gala affair with fancy finger food, festive balloons, and 150 guests mingling beneath a tent on a construction site where heavy machines had already begun to carve the earth.
When Partners HealthCare Inc. broke ground on its enormous $144 million outpatient center in Danvers in September 2007, guests were invited to sign a steel I-beam that would help form the clinic's sturdy frame. Company officials talked about transforming medical care on the North Shore. There was warm applause and congratulations.
But just five miles down the road, the event was greeted with consternation. More than that, with fear. Beverly Hospital officials were just weeks from cutting the ribbon on an outpatient clinic of their own - a sparkling $30 million medical-surgery center - and worrying about their ability to compete against the deep pockets of Partners. They also felt sure they were being punished for an earlier collision of interests that angered the giant.
As Dr. Henry A. Frissora, a surgeon at Beverly Hospital, would later say about Partners' expansion into the suburbs: "It seems like they want the whole pie now."
Indeed, since Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital joined forces to create Partners in 1993, the company has opened outposts across a wide swath of eastern Massachusetts - community hospitals, outpatient centers, and physician groups that have strengthened its dominant position in the region....
Coming at you, AmeriKa! Question: How many ways can government loot you?
Partners, as the Globe reported last month, receives markedly higher payments from insurers for patient treatment; it can offer doctors much higher pay than competing community institutions; and it comes to market with a multibillion dollar war chest - the proceeds of those higher insurance rates - to go with its coveted brand name.
To the north, west, and south of Boston, the playing field is tilted. Other big hospital companies are reaching into the suburbs, too. But nothing to match Partners, which increasingly has the look of an unstoppable force....
It's all part of an ambitious strategy, one driven by Partners executives' belief that the Bay State hospital business has come down to the survival of the fittest. Who will reap the profits - or surpluses, as they are called in the world of nonprofits - needed to thrive and grow?
Word games = RIP OFF!!!!!
But for community hospitals that historically have been the backbone of Massachusetts healthcare, it's not that simple....
Yeah, ours stinks now!
"By paying Partners more, you build up their war chest and then they build more and more and then they drive other people out of business," said Marc Roberts, a professor of political economy at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a huge slow-motion train wreck for the Massachusetts healthcare system."
And OBAMA and the DEMS want to pattern the NATIONAL SYSTEM after this! Please don't!
If Partners' move to the suburbs is provoking Bronx cheers from the front offices of some community hospitals, it is drawing sustained applause from the nation's top bond rating houses. Last year Moody's Investors Service gave Partners nearly its top rating on $700 million in tax-exempt bonds, in part because of Partners' plans beyond the Boston city limits....
Can we get the BANKS and the LOOTERS OUT of the HEALTH INDUSTRY PLEASE!!!! SiCKO, America, SiCKO!!!!!
While their competitors complain about duplicative services and unfair competition, Partners knows that its suburban strategy has lucrative potential....
I just puked? You gonna pay an inflated health bill for that, Mass. residents and taxpayers?
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Yeah, you want our state system for national health care. So which health conglomerate is going to run the thing?
