DC 37: NYC Public Health Care Restructuring Proposal "Deeply Flawed" & Will Undermine Care

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/14184

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on September 20, 2010 - 4:34pm
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By Doug Cunningham

New York City’s largest public employee union – AFSCME’s DC37 – says a restructuring plan for Health and Hospitals Corp. is a slash and burn plan with a deeply flawed cost-benefit analysis that undermines public health care. DC 37 President Lillian Roberts says the plan will hurt hundreds of thousands of people without health insurance who depend on HHC for health care.

: “It’s gonna suffer because of it, because we expect that the patient population has been increasing by large numbers and we know that it will increase more.”

The union says the restructuring plan is misguided in proposing to eliminate 3700 full-time equivalent employees who deliver these vital services to the community.

: “If you’re going to contract out anything it has to be contracted out and the person’s expected to make a profit. We all pay for that. And I think it’s disgusting, because that is a demand service. We’re not talking about cans of peas, we’re talking about human beings.”