Public Employee Press

Fighting Back
Hospital workers battle Pataki's Medicaid cuts
Governor's cuts could take as much as $60 million from Health and Hospitals Corporation

	Respiratory Therapists Phillip Brown (left) and Joseph Lagaman (right), both members of Health Services Employees Local 768, are part of a team that provides patients at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn with excellent health care services.

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

For James Rivera, Bellevue Hospital has been a lifesaver. Six days a week he comes to the Manhattan hospital for drug counseling and physical therapy.

To receive that treatment he used to travel all the way to Coney Island. “But they closed that program,” said Rivera, as he eagerly grabbed a pen to sign a petition against Governor Pataki’s proposed Medicaid cuts. “If they close this program where am I supposed to go?”

Thousands of New Yorkers covered by Medicaid are asking themselves the same question.
Gov. Pataki’s proposed executive budget for 2004-2005 will take at least $60 million dollars in taxes, shifted costs and Medicaid cuts from the city’s Health and Hospital Corp. The cuts hit hardest at long-term care facilities like the Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility on Roosevelt Island, Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn and Sea View Hospital Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Staten Island. The Sea View facility is the only public nursing home on Staten Island.

Under the Pataki proposal, Coler-Goldwater could lose as much as $26 million in Medicaid funding. The governor also proposes to tax hospitals, nursing homes and home care agencies. “New York City’s public hospital system cannot withstand additional taxes or payment reductions,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts of the governor’s plan.

“These cuts in and of themselves will have a severe impact on the exemplary services provided by HHC.” “These are special populations that need to have services maintained,” said Coler-Goldwater Executive Director Claude Rittman at a breakfast with health care activists, labor leaders and Bellevue Hospital management. “We are the safety net facilities for this city, and we have to maintain our mission of providing excellent care.”

The Bellevue meeting was held on March 4, which was proclaimed “Health Care Action Day” by Jobs with Justice. Hundreds of unions, retiree organizations and grassroots community groups held events nationwide to protest cuts in services, raise public awareness about the attacks on Medicare and Medicaid, and press for a national health insurance plan with universal coverage.

President Bush recently signed legislation intended to provide a much-needed Medicare drug benefit. But the plan offers inadequate benefits while it protects high prescription prices, gives windfall profits to the drug and insurance industries and opens the door to privatization.

Health Care Action Day
In New York City on March 4, DC 37 activists participated in the nationwide action by launching an organizing drive at HHC facilities to collect thousands of signatures on petitions against Pataki’s proposed cuts.

“We are mobilizing our members to make phone calls, sign petitions and send postcards to state and city leaders urging them to raise revenue by closing corporate loopholes and reinstituting the stock transfer tax instead of cutting healthcare and Medicaid,” said Ralph Palladino, 2nd vice president of Local 1549 and legislative chair of the Bellevue Community Advisory Board.

“We are also fighting the cuts in coalition with the hospitals’ community advisory boards, which include some of our union members, and explaining the issues to legislators in City Hall and Albany,” said DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams.

Fifteen-year HHC veteran Necha Sirota is concerned about how the cuts will affect the quality of patient care. “Our caseloads are growing and there’s pressure to reduce the length of stay for some patients,” said the Social Work Supervisor II at Coney Island Hospital. A Local 768 member, she works with many patients who are in crisis and are dangerous to themselves. “If they don’t get the good care that we provide here, they’ll be right back at the hospital.”

You can help stop the cuts. Call the numbers on the back page of PEP and ask your elected officials to fight the Medicaid cuts. Use the toll-free number or the e-mail address provided to send your message right to the governor.