http://www.policy-wonk.org/erika-rosenberg/new-york%e2%80%99s-heated-health-care-battle/ Let's talk about where we're headed... Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:40:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.policy-wonk.org/erika-rosenberg/new-york%e2%80%99s-heated-health-care-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-105 Jeremy Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:05:47 +0000 http://live.cgr.org/policy-wonk/?p=127#comment-105 The real tragedy is that voters might fail to realize the hospital fight is being waged not by workers but by millionares defending their greed-inflated salaries from Spitzer's reforms. Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, was the man with the money behind the recently-pulled ads, who got the attention he wanted and is now sending union workers to the front like so many puppets. Ask yourself: How often do real workers with a grievance have the money to blitzkrieg a newly appointed governor with TV ads? Where were the ads when American Airlines workers were cheated out of their retirement by a bankruptcy loophole? The answer: nowhere, because the real poor can't afford them. When have you ever seen such a well-orchestrated campaign emerge so quickly against an actual threat to wages and patients' rights? Never, because real workers are caught scrambling for their pittance. Could it be that millionaire industry kingpins are spinning negative publicity to further their own selfish ends? Perhaps the anti-Spitzer campaign is yet another case of corporate sabotage, a mercenary way to counteract the effects of a free election. Perhaps the real motive is to keep Spitzer from redirecting money away from wealthy hospital CEOs and toward better patient care, and perhaps to stop the man we elected from doing precisely what we elected him to do. The real tragedy is that voters might fail to realize the hospital fight is being waged not by workers but by millionares defending their greed-inflated salaries from Spitzer’s reforms. Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, was the man with the money behind the recently-pulled ads, who got the attention he wanted and is now sending union workers to the front like so many puppets. Ask yourself: How often do real workers with a grievance have the money to blitzkrieg a newly appointed governor with TV ads? Where were the ads when American Airlines workers were cheated out of their retirement by a bankruptcy loophole? The answer: nowhere, because the real poor can’t afford them. When have you ever seen such a well-orchestrated campaign emerge so quickly against an actual threat to wages and patients’ rights? Never, because real workers are caught scrambling for their pittance. Could it be that millionaire industry kingpins are spinning negative publicity to further their own selfish ends? Perhaps the anti-Spitzer campaign is yet another case of corporate sabotage, a mercenary way to counteract the effects of a free election. Perhaps the real motive is to keep Spitzer from redirecting money away from wealthy hospital CEOs and toward better patient care, and perhaps to stop the man we elected from doing precisely what we elected him to do.

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