Rousing 2011 #OWS speech reminds us of role of St. Vincent's Hospital on 9/11

Read your lipservice on 9/11, but we have no full-service hospital below 14th Street since St. Vincent's closed. #Rudin @Partnership4NYC

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) September 11, 2014

Turning their backs on LICH, de Blasio and Cuomo stir up community and activist anger

Mayor de Blasio has gone back on his campaign promise to support "hospitals, not condos." And the governor, well, Gov. Cuomo has been trying to close Brooklyn hospitals from Day One.

RELATED LICH closure causing growing political backlash in Brooklyn ; Mayor, Governor under pressure (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle) Healthcare As Bargaining Chips in New York City Politics // The Pelican Brief (NYC : News & Analysis)

Disappointment in Mayor Bill de Blasio is turning into community outrage as residents of Brooklyn come to grips with how the mayor's office waged a duplicitous campaign in regards to Long Island College Hospital, or LICH as it is better known. Publicly, Mayor de Blasio was giving lip service to saving LICH, but privately, some community activists are now saying that the mayor's staff was trying to bully healthcare activists into supporting the closure of the hospital so that a large real estate developer could convert the complex medical campus into luxury condos. The reality of the mayor's duplicitious nature, while shocking to grassroots activists, comes as no surprise to astute political observers of how the real corrupt nature of the broken political system works in New York City. Mayor de Blasio stormed into office during last year's mayoral election with the aid of a corrupt Super PAC undercuting his chief rival and with promises to provide a clean break from the Bloomberg-Quinn administration. The mayor's empty and meaningless campaign promises weren't made, because he believed in them, but because his campaign consultants knew that the electorate was desperate for change, and that this messaging would help him win the election -- a prediction that turned out to be correct, but that would not fix the broken political system, because that was never the de Blasio campaign's intention. The latest revelation of the mayor's duplicitous administration comes from an article about LICH in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle : Following SUNY’s announcement on Friday that it had reached an “agreement in principle” to sell the LICH campus in Cobble Hill to Fortis for development into condos, local officials representing the LICH catchment area issued a statement putting them on the opposite side of the fence with the Mayor, who pushed for the deal. While campaigning on the theme of "hospitals, not condos," De Blasio has apparently moderated his stance since becoming Mayor, saying that an urgent care center and "stand-alone ER" planned for the site will preserve health care for northwestern Brooklyn. Sources told the Brooklyn Eagle that in February the Mayor's staff put pressure on the community groups fighting for LICH to support Fortis. The growing political scandal over Mayor de Blasio's betrayal of his campaign promise to save LICH is just the latest example of how the economic realities will fracture Democratic unity : On the city level, nobody knows how the mayor will pay for expansion of pre-kinder, making good on union backpay demands, and fighting income inequality. On the state level, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will use pension IOU vouchers and hospital closings to pay for the $2 billion election year tax cut gimmicks needed to fluff his troubled re-election campaign. Caught in between are healthcare and other social needs reform activists, who are looking to the twin Democratic politicians of New York, asking, "Where's the liberal leadership we can count on ?" But this fracturing of Democratic unity is only coming about because of how Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo have deceived voters into believing that the Democratic political elite can deliver an overhaul of the broken political system that never answers the demands made by communitys. The elite Democratic politicians will never deliver social, economic, or legal reforms when they are as beholdened to real estate developers as are Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo. One of Gov. Cuomo's first acts in office was to empanel a controversial Medicaid Redesign Team that has instituted a scorched earth campaign of austerity cuts to the poorest New Yorkers, those who rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. Part of the governor's austerity cuts was to push for the closure of full service hospitals, where the poor and the uninsured seek life-saving, but expensive, healthcare services. His controversial push for more hospital closings came on the heels of the controversial closure of St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, which is being now redeveloped into a $1 billion luxury condo and townhouse complex by the billionaire Rudin family. Because of income and wealth disparities, many of the state's poor people are concentrated in New York City, making it an easy target to close hospitals with a charity mission serving the poor and the uninsured. The governor's plan to cut healthcare costs to the poor was expanded under Obamacare, as more and more poor people qualified for Medicaid, a move that forced Gov. Cuomo to close even more charity hospitals. To augment hospital closings, the Obamacare expansion of the New York State Medicaid program makes it difficult for poor people to receive prescriptions for life-saving, but expensive, prescription medications, like cholesterol-fighting medications and other prescription medications for people with long-term diseases or disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome or other functional gastro-intestinal disorders. Against this backdrop of austerity cuts, the closure of LICH on Mayor de Blasio's and Gov. Cuomo's joint watch is opening the eyes of healthcare activists to the unseemly political reality that Demcoratic politicians, even those that self-annoint themselves as "progressives," are just as neoliberal in their need to make austerity cuts to the poor and to the sick as the former center-right administration of Michael Bloomberg and former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Furthermore, if Mayor Bill de Blasio was uncommitted to saving LICH from the start, in spite of his campaign demands for a moratorium on hospital closings, then this doesn't bode well for Interfaith Medical Center, also in Brooklyn, which has been targeted for closure, as well, by Medicaid Redesign Team hatchetman Stephen Berger and Gov. Cuomo. Even as the 1199 healthcare union protests the job losses and healthcare cuts by corporate-minded CEO's, note that 1199 strong-armed the Working Families Party to endorse the re-election campaign of Gov. Cuomo, whose very own Medicaid Redesign Team implimented large-scale healthcare cuts, including the outsourcing to Mr. Berger the effort to keep closing city hospitals that have resulted in still yet further healthcare union job losses, not including the negative impact to public health. How long will it take healthcare activists and other grassroots advocates fighting for unfinished healthcare reforms, such as the adoption of a single-payer healthcare system in New York state to replace Obamacare, before they wake up to see how the corrupt political operatives of some healthcare unions, drunk on the corrupt political Kool-Aid of "business as usual," keep neoliberal Democratic politicians in office, who have no intentions of ever delivering the healthcare reforms that the community demands ?

Following bombardment of bad press, Mayor de Blasio spinning his way back to illusion of competency

After a barrage of negative publicity over the closure of Long Island College Hospital, de Blasio administration operatives plant a spin doctor story in Capital New York about background political machinations

Last week-end, the columnist Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times wrote a fair critique of the de Blasio administration's failure to live up to his change and hope hype for transformational progressive leadership.

Ms. Bellafante listed concrete examples, such as the closure of Long Island College Hospital ; the unsavory Working Families Party endorsement of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which Mayor Bill de Blasio helped to orchestrate ; and the limited impact that raising the minimum wage would have on the actual cost of living hardship for average New Yorkers, amongst other observations. Ms. Bellafante balanced her assessment with news about some accomplishments that have been overshadowed by the mayor's penchant for drama.

Against a backdrop of recent press reports, which have crushed the de Blasio administration's efforts to spin a reputation for itself for being a beacon of "progressive" values, City Hall has been shaken by an emerging new impression of the mayor's neoliberal inclinations.

• RELATED : Bill de Blasio betrayed his believers in Cobble Hill (amNewYork)
• RELATED : de Blasio Used LICH as a Political Prop, Angry Ex-Supporters Say (DNAinfo New York)
• RELATED : NYTimes LICH Hospital Report Back ; Scandal : Red Hook Death (Suzannah B. Troy)
• RELATED : Bill de Blasio stumbled on Long Island College Hospital (amNewYork)
• RELATED : The tragic way Bill de Blasio supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the Working Families Party convention (Twitter)
• RELATED : For de Blasio, Deals, Drama and (Maybe) Progress (The New York Times)

In the wake of such criticisms in the mainstream media, the de Blasio administration is fighting back in the press with a story in Capital New York, where the mayor's political operatives leaked a rehash of backroom machinations in their supposed efforting to save Long Island College Hospital. We'd heard this before, like when the same Capital New York reporter had reported that the mayor's operatives, Emma Wolfe, had grown concerned with the crumbling deals to save Long Island College Hospital, also known as LICH.

Repeating the administration's "concerns" for the community is just a way to deflect any further criticisms of the de Blasio's apparent exploitation of the hospital closing crisis as an election year tactic.

Bill de Blasio - Hospital Closing Crisis Flyer

The wave of hospital closings continue into the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration from the Bloomberg-Quinn administration, because lying, cheating politicians, first promise to meet community demands to save our hospitals, but then turn out to fail to live up to their campaign promises.

2014-05-22 Bill de Blasio Hospital Closings Flyer by Connaissable

North Shore-LIJ : Making Money Through State Grants From Hospital Closings

PUBLISHED : MON, 14 APR 2014, 08:59 PM
UPDATED : TUES, 15 APR 2014, 11:15 AM

Before and after some New York hospital closings, North Shore-LIJ successfully lobbied for state grants to fund its expansion plans.

Here's some intrigue, which the corrupt Moreland Commission should have investigated, about the granting of state money and an anti-trust loophole to a politically-connected ally of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's.

After three hospitals closed in New York City, North Shore-LIJ scored almost $20 million in state grants to help it make further inroads into the Manhattan and Queens hospital markets. The grants were backdoor funding that the state Department of Health provided existing healthcare facilities to temporarily expand their capacity in order for the state to facilitate wholesale hospital closures sought first by the Berger Commission and later by the Medicaid Redesign Team.

North Shore-LIJ received another $10 million grant after Hurricane Sandy, further demonstrating how politically astute the Long Island hospital chain has become in raking in grant money from hospital closings and natural disasters.

• RELATED : As part of the Berger Commission drive to close St. John's Queens Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital, the state Department of Health made a $3.5 million grant to North Shore-LIJ to "expand inpatient capacity and emergency room services at its Forest Hills and Franklin sites." (NYS Department of Health)
• RELATED : North Shore-LIJ opened an urgent care center in Rego Park, Queens, in 2010, following the 2009 Berger Commission bankruptcy and closures of St. John’s Queens Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital. The expansion of North Shore-LIJ into New York City was paid for by a $5.3 million grant from the state Department of Health. (The New York Post)
• RELATED : The state awarded a $9.4 million grant last spring to Lenox Hill Hospital/North Shore-LIJ to operate an urgent care center in Greenwich Village. (North Shore-LIJ will open an urgent care-center on West 20th Street * The Wall Street Journal)
• RELATED : Sixteen months after the North Shore-LIJ opened an urgent care center in Manhattan after St. Vincent’s Hospital closed, the system has closed the urgent center due to a lack of use, pocketing the $9.4 million grant. (North Shore-LIJ closes NYC urgent care center near St. Vincent's Hospital * Long Island Business News)
• RELATED : State officials are sparring over a bill that would allow Nassau Health Care Corp. join with North Shore-LIJ with blanket immunity from antitrust laws. (Schneiderman raises antitrust concerns over NuHealth/North Shore-LIJ partnership * Newsday)
• RELATED : Despite antitrust objections by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law a bill that allows Nassau Health Care Corp. to collaborate with North Shore-LIJ with blanket antitrust immunity. (Despite antitrust objections, Cuomo approves NuHealth/North Shore-LIJ partnership * Newsday)

Whether it wants to either receive grant money to help fuel its expansion plans, lobby for blanket antitrust immunity to provide cover for its expansion plans, or to get a cut from grant money related to Hurricane Sandy as new funding streams, North Shore-LIJ gets exactly what it wants.

Helping North Shore-LIJ navigate through the sleazy swamp of corrupt Albany grant-making politics is North Shore-LIJ CEO Michael Dowling, who served as a co-chair on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team effort to close hospitals and make scorched earth austerity cuts to healthcare. In 2010, North Shore-LIJ CEO Dowling was paid an astronomical $2.9 million in compensation, even though the hospital system is set up as a non-profit, yeah right.

In the above YouTube video recorded in 2011, Mr. Dowling described to community activist Jim Fouratt how the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital donated for free valuable property that North Shore-LIJ plans to use for an urgent care center on Seventh Avenue South. No word yet on how many millions in state grants were received by North Shore-LIJ in respect of this new iteration of an urgent care center, which is set to open this year.

Bill de Blasio and Bill Rudin Community Betrayal ?

Has Mayor de Blasio turned his back on the community demand for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's ?

Bill Rudin is one of the most corrupt real estate developers in New York City. He is the one, who basically foreclosed on St. Vincent's Hospital. He and his family paid off former Council Speaker Christine Quinn with $30,000 in campaign donations to look the other way. Has Bill Rudin found a way to pay off Mayor Bill de Blasio, too ?

• RELATED : Bill de Blasio may not like the condos Rudin Management is building in place of the old St. Vincent's Hospital, but that hasn't impacted his relationship with the developer's former lobbyist, James Capalino. (A former Rudin lobbyist volunteers for Bill de Blasio * Capital New York)
• RELATED : Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio stopped by an Association for a Better New York power breakfast to pay respect to one his key real estate development supporters, Bill Rudin. (Mayor de Blasio Makes Surprise Stop at Bill Rudin's ABNY Power Breakfast * The New York Observer)

From the Demand A Hospital listserv :

Dear All :

Last year, Bill de Blasio demonstrated outside the construction site for the $1 billion Rudin luxury condo complex in order to burnish his appeal amongst the communities impacted by hospital closings. The theme of that protest was "Hospitals, Not Condos."

• LINK : Bill de Blasio to lead ‘Hospitals Not Condos’ rally at former St. Vincent’s site, with Belafonte, Sarandon, Cynthia Nixon, others (East Villager)

Furthermore, one of the NYC Is Not For Sale commercials that helped to elect Mayor de Blasio focused on the corrupt role of Bill Rudin's campaign donations to former Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

• LINK : New Super PAC ad blasts Christine Quinn for role in closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital (The New York Daily New)

But now that he's been elected, Mayor de Blasio is socializing with the very same corrupt real estate developer whose luxury condo conversion deal he once criticized.

• LINK : Bill Bratton, Bill de Blasio and Bill Rudin at an April 3 gala. (Crains).

Does this mean that Mayor de Blasio has turned his back on the community's demand for a full service hospital to replace St. Vincent's ?

Thanks for all that you do.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals : 1 (518) 474-8390

You can also tweet your concerns to Gov. Cuomo at : @NYGovCuomo

Putting New Yorkers in jail because of healthcare cuts, lack of housing, and racist policing, but blaming mental illness

The Editorial Board of The New York Times thinks that enrolling all jail inmates into Medicaid will solve the "mental health" crisis of jail inmates. What a joke !

How many people with mental health needs end up in jail, because of each of a lack of a specialized municipal healthcare system that should first provide people with the full-service mental healthcare treatments that they may need and the NYPD's continued use of its "broken windows" theory of policing that deliberately targets people with the least and people with hardships for incarceration ?

• RELATED : The Mentally Ill, Behind Bars (The New York Times)

The Editorial Board worries about discharged inmates receiving post-detention care, but what about providing healthcare and support so that people don't become jail inmates in the first place ? Why doesn't The New York Times oppose policing tactics that lead to the arrest of people solely because they may be homeless, may be poor, or may have unmet healthcare needs ? The systematic closing of so many of New York City's full-service hospitals, including specialize mental health hospitals like Holliswood Hospital of Queens, added to a broken municipal shelter system and the lack of affordable housing, leave people with special needs with fewer and fewer places to go. Mix in Police Commissioner William Bratton's crackdown on the poor, and you have a perfect storm that puts people into jail for all the wrong reasons. How do we even know that jail inmates are truly even "mentally ill" ? Maybe some inmates are just plain discouraged as a direct result of either their dire economic circumstances or being targeted for arrest by police for being poor or being of color ?

Furthermore, the Editorial Board's Medicaid advocacy falls short of the realities of the broken healthcare system. So many experienced healthcare providers don't accept, and many specialized medications aren't covered by, Medicaid. By railroading inmates into a Medicaid healthcare plan that doesn't allow access to a full-range of healthcare treatment, I don't know what good the Editorial Board really expects will happen. Have members of The New York Times' Editorial Board ever tried getting an appointment with a good doctor, or filling a prescription, on Medicaid ? How do we know whether people on Medicaid with mental healthcare needs aren't being driven into incarceration by their failed healthcare coverage, the hospital closing crisis, and Commissioner Bratton's crackdown on poor people of color ? Where's the safety net ?

Mayor de Blasio with Bill Rudin (twice) ; Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital and Dr. Brickner

• RELATED : Bill de Blasio and Bill Rudin Community Betrayal ? (NYC : News & Analysis)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

From the Demand A Hospital listserv :

Dear All :

A news round-up, plus photographs of Mayor de Blasio kissing up to Bill Rudin and embracing Rudin lobbyist, James Capalino.

1. Remembering Dr. Brickner. Dr. Philip Brickner, who was chairman of St. Vincent's community medicine department, made house calls and set up a “free clinic” for people in need. He passed away on March 24 at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He was 85. (Remembering Dr. Philip Brickner, who made house calls to the vulnerable, dies at 85 * The New York Times)

2. Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital. Some say that Rudin Management, the builder of the new billion-dollar luxury condominium complex at St. Vincent’s footprint, was coincidentally former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s largest campaign contributor, and she didn’t do all she could do to save the hospital. Sadly, this article unfairly blames St. Vincent's for the economic consequences of making good on its own charity mission. Healthcare has taken a beating in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, and, citywide, the assault continues. (Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital * The Indypendent)

3. Bill Rudin breakfast. Mayor Bill de Blasio makes a "surprise" appearance last Wednesday morning at Bill Rudin's Association for a Better New York power breakfast. (Mayor de Blasio makes surprise stop at ABNY insider breakfast * The New York Observer)

4. Bill Rudin gala. Mayor de Blasio expresses support Thursday night for police crackdown as a way to jack up real estate values at Bill Rudin's Waldorf-Astoria charity benefit in this desperate Bloomberg public relations puff piece meant to help rehabilitate the Rudin family's tarnished image. See photo. (Mayor de Blasio kisses up to Bill Rudin at Waldorf-Astoria gala * Bloomberg)

5. James Capalino connection. Reminder that last year, then mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio literally and figuratively embraced campaigning with Rudin's corrupt ULURP condo conversion lobbyist, James Capalino. See photo. (James Capalino, a former Rudin lobbyist volunteers for de Blasio * Capital New York)

Thank you for all that you do.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals : 1 (518) 474-8390

You can also tweet your concerns to Gov. Cuomo at : @NYGovCuomo

WNYC Is Looking For Help To Crack a Case of Albany Corruption

The $3 Million Mystery Medical Care Center

Are you http://t.co/zTynyQx7MW looking for this ? http://t.co/t03yRz2HJj @WNYC @NorthShoreLIJ @lenoxhill @AndreaWNYC @jkeefe

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) December 4, 2013

The WNYC reporters John Keefe and Andrea Bernstein are asking for the public's help to identify a medical care center in New York City, which has received $3 million in taxpayer money, but, which, according to the Moreland Commission's report on corruption, has few, if any, patients.

One may recall that the urgent care center operated by North Shore-LIJ/Lenox Hill Hospital in Chelsea was supposed to have received taxpayer money. But according to YELP, that urgent care center appears to now be closed.

Could this be the mysterious facility that has received millions in taxpayer money in exchange for providing nonexistent medical care services to the community ?

Stay tuned.

North Shore LIJ Medical Group - CLOSED - Chelsea - Manhattan, NY

Intentionally Deceptive Advertising ?

North Shore LIJ/Lenox Hill fraudulently labeling urgent care center as a "hospital." Do you agree ? @nycHealthy pic.twitter.com/FRyvAMvh9D

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) December 4, 2013

Another urgent care center, which North Shore-LIJ/Lenox Hill Hospital plan to operate near the $1 billion Rudin luxury condominium complex, is now being labeled as a "hospital," even though it does not have the facilities, medical specializations, or certifications to treat heart attack patients, according to New York City EMS Chief Abdo Nahmod.

Contrasting "Narratives" on Medicaid, Hospital Budget Cuts Under Obamacare

#Gov1%, Hospital Budget Cuts, Medicaid Redesign Team, Stephen Berger, and GOP-Controlled States Take Toll on Life-Saving Emergency Care

Dr. Herbert Pardes, who used to lead New York-Presbyterian Hospital as president and CEO, earned $4.3 million in 2010, boosted by a $339,101 SERP payment. That came on top of a $6.8 million SERP payment that vested in 2008. (SERPs up! Hospital execs win big : Deferred plans boost chiefs' 'longevity pay' by millions of dollars * Crain's)

Dr. Pardes gave an interview on Channel 13 today, where he sounded pretty desperate to spin a win-win situation for patients under Obamacare. But there was a competing article published in The New York Times on the same day as his interview. The article showed that cuts to hospital budgets, caps on Medicaid, and refusals to expand Medicaid, and hospital closings was leading to serious life-threatening healthcare emergencies. Yet, Dr. Pardes remained ignorant of public health disaster caused by the wave of hospital closings instigated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo under Stephen Berger's Medicaid Redesign Team.

HERBERT PARDES: … I think to his credit, the Governor in New York did a good job in terms of putting a cap on the Medicaid budget. And he worked collaboratively with the providers and brought the cost down substantially.

So, the whole story isn’t beautiful, but there are parts which are.

RICHARD HEFFNER: But you’re saying, I gather … and that’s a beautiful point, if, if I understand correctly … that service is not going down, costs are not leveling because people are being less well served.

PARDES: Well, that’s exactly the kind of combined focus that people should undertake. Which is to say, bring costs down, but not at the expense of a clinical care of the patients. And we feel very strongly about that. So wherever we’ve taken out costs and there’s another part to this story, which is New York Presbyterian simply taking out costs … we’ve done it, but protected the clinical care aspect of our hospital. So … (More about the Dim Future of American Medicine * Thirteen.org)

If uninsured or underinsured patients have no insurance under Obamacare because Republican-led states opted out of expanding out of Medicaid, how do Obamacare supporters explain the draconian, scorched-earth campaign by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Wall Street banker Stephen Berger's efforts to close hospitals, which are used as safety net care by the poor, before primary care is set up as a replacement ? Conveniently, it always goes unsaid how the closing of emergency rooms, full-service hospitals, and trauma centers will impact patients' likelihood of survivals (their healthcare outcomes) in life-threatening medical emergencies, when the next nearest full-service hospital or trauma center is further away ?

… A government subsidy, little known outside health policy circles but critical to the hospitals’ survival, is being sharply reduced under the new [Obamacare] health law.

The subsidy, which for years has helped defray the cost of uncompensated and undercompensated care, was cut substantially on the assumption that the hospitals would replace much of the lost income with payments for patients newly covered by Medicaid or private insurance. But now the hospitals in states like Georgia [, which like other Republican-led states, refused to broaden Medicaid after the Supreme Court in 2012 gave states the right to opt out, ] will get neither the new Medicaid patients nor most of the old subsidies, which many say are crucial to the mission of care for the poor. ...

… The cuts in subsidies for safety-net hospitals like Memorial [in Georgia] — those that deliver a significant amount of care to poor, uninsured or otherwise vulnerable patients — are set to total at least $18 billion through 2020. The government has projected that as much as $22 billion more in Medicare subsidies could be cut by 2019, depending partly on the change in the numbers of uninsured nationally.

The cuts are just one of the reductions in government reimbursements that are squeezing hospitals across the country. Some have already announced layoffs. In Georgia, three rural hospitals have closed this year. … (Cuts in Hospital Subsidies Threaten Safety-Net Care * The New York Times)

New York’s Ongoing Blackout: Hospitals in Lower Manhattan (Pro Publica) * St. Vincent’s Is the Lehman Brothers of Hospitals (New York magazine) * Governor Cuomo’s Medicaid cuts may kill 10 city hospitals (The New York Post)

Corrupt Campaign Finance and Lobbyist Influence in de Blasio and Cuomo administrations

"Bags of Cash"

Real estate developers, gambling interests, and lobbyists corrupt New York City and New York State politics. In this YouTube video, questions are raised about why the super-majority of liberal and progressive politicians in New York are unable to propose and enact real campaign finance and lobbyist reforms. Are Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Prosecutor Kathleen Rice more interested in milking big business interests and lobbyists of campaign donations to dare to reform the broken political system ?

Stay tuned ....

James Capalino, Other Lobbyists Lined Up To Help Host Million-Dollar Bill de Blasio/Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

James Capalino, Other Lobbyists Lined Up To Help Host Million-Dollar Bill de Blasio/Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

From Daily News Daily Politics :

The host committee of Bill de Blasio's million-dollar Monday-night fundraiser with Hillary Clinton read like a who's who of big-league city lobbyists -- and it's drawing fire from his GOP foe in the mayor's race.

"The level of Bill de Blasio's hypocrisy is alarming. He takes cash from developers and special interests while telling New Yorkers he supports something different," Jessica Proud, a spokeswoman for Republican nominee Joe Lhota, told the Daily News. "I don't think anyone can trust who the real Bill de Blasio is when he always tries to play both sides."

De Blasio spokesman Dan Levitan declined comment on both Proud's comments or the number of lobbyists involved in the cash bash.

Among those on the host committee for the Roosevelt Hotel soiree : James Capalino, who in the past lobbied for Rudin Management, which is developing high-end condos near the site of the shuttered St. Vincent's Hospital, and A-list lobbyist Suri Kasirer, who has met with de Blasio on Atlantic Yards project.

Kasirer characterized her role in the fundraiser as more about old friendships than pending business.

"It was kind of like Old Home Week," said Kasirer, who said her 25-year friendship with the mayoral frontrunner goes back to the administration of former Mayor David Dinkins and continued through and past Clinton's 2000 run for the Senate.

While Kasirer says she's closely watching issues that may extend into the next administration, such as Midtown East rezoning, she painted the evening as "a way for a lot of New Yorkers to give a boost to Hillary and let her know that we were eagerly waiting for her decision and want her to run [for president]...

"I think for me it was less about lobbying than it was about sort of longtime relationships."

Capalino didn't immediately return a call about the fundraiser.

Fordham University's Costas Panagopoulos said the list wasn't surprising given that given that "money follows power and special interests can read the polls just as well as anyone else can," and that de Blasio and many of his backers are "established politicians with access to lobbyists and other donors" happy to help raise cash for a man who may make decisions critical to their clients.

The political science prof also said there is of course the issue of "whether someone who's been elected partly as a result of having attracted considerable financial support is subsequently beholden to those interests" if he or she wins.

"We'd like to think that kind of quid pro quo -- or some would go so far as to call it corruption -- doesn't exist, but it's a legitimate question," he said. "Answering this question will require vigilance and surveillance if [de Blasio is] elected."

Others on the lengthy host committee list included Stan Natapoff and Alexandra Stanton of Empire Global Ventures; Rachel Amar of Waste Management Of New York; and Michael Woloz of Connelly McLaughlin & Woloz.

How committed is Bill de Blasio to adopting progressive reforms ?

Bill de Blasio and Land Use : Liberal Mayoral Candidate Would Continue Many of Bloomberg's -- and Quinn's -- Policies

In the weeks leading up to Christine Quinn's defeat in the Democratic primary election, it came to be known that one of the slimy Rudin lobbyists responsible for influencing the City Council to approve the controversial St. Vincent's luxury condo conversion plan had already found a way to get access to Bill de Blasio, the presumptive leading mayoral candidate. Hosted on Scribd is an e-mail about the controversial lobbyist, James Capalino, that was exchanged between Donny Moss and I.

After a couple of weeks of careful consideration, I have produced a new YouTube video about this e-mail exchange.

One major reason that activists organised to vote Quinn out of office was because of how she sold out the community in favor of her campaign contributors and powerful big business interests. Real estate developers have enjoyed great influence over city government, so much so that voters have had almost no way of participating in important community decisions. For example, voters desired saving the zoning on the St. Vincent's campus for a replacement hospital, but big business interests were able to ride roughshod over voters because of their use of lobbyists and the outsized influence of campaign donations.

After the primary election, Bill de Blasio announced that he would not appear at fundraisers unless contributors could package together donations of at least $75,000. In addition to embracing lobbyists that helped Rudin privatise the former real estate of St. Vincent's, de Blasio was now embracing the out-sized influence of money in politics.

How could it be that activists, who carried the reform banner to organize and defeat Quinn in the mayoral primary, now turn the other way after de Blasio has now begun to adopt some the same tools of the broken political system as did Quinn ?

The concerns over who gets access to political candidates are serious. As some of you may know, when Andrew Cuomo was running for governor, some St. Vincent's activists approached his campaign people over the need for a hospital to replace St. Vincent's. Cuomo's campaign people told the St. Vincent's activists, "We'll see you after the election." After the election, what did Gov. Cuomo do ? Within days, he formed the Medicaid Redesign Team to continue the work of closing hospitals, and he appointed Stephen Berger to head the Brooklyn Working Group in an attempt to specifically close hospitals in Brooklyn. Similarly, some AIDS activists tried to reach out to the de Blasio campaign this year to determine if his campaign platform would include more ambitious goals to confront HIV/AIDS, but the AIDS activists were told by de Blasio's campaign people, "We'll see you after the election."

After all the community organizing, town halls, and protests in which activists have engaged to fight for a hospital to save St. Vincent's, just hearing the phrase, "We'll see you after the election," should activate a powerful recognition : that de Blasio means to make no public commitment to champion for the reforms that that many communities say they want to see brought about in the next mayoral administration.

Some activists, who participated in the movement to vote Quinn out of office, have been doing this work for over 22 years -- from the time when Quinn first arrived in the political scene in New York. It becomes too late to try to hold a politician accountable once the politician gets elected into office. Using Quinn as an example, she will have spent about 15 years in City Council spread out over 5 terms in office. During this time, in what direction has this city headed ? There was no way to hold her accountable during these 15 years, except to finally vote her out of office. That's the only way.

As challenging as it was to vote Quinn out of office, what lesson should we be drawing from this experience ? What wisdom is there to be had ? The reality is that Quinn was just a symptom of a broken political system. The root causes of the political system being broken still exist. In the last two years, our activism was influenced by important principles from the Occupy movement, and that is that inequality, corruption, and the undue influence of big business interests is what keeps our government broken and non-responsive to voters' needs. Knowing all that we know, do we wait for politicians to max out on term limits before they should be held accountable to voters, or should politicians be held accountable even before they win an election and are sworn into office ?

It all comes down to what you think, because it was you, who was made voiceless under the Bloomberg-Quinn administration. Our immediate contribution to push back against the broken political system was to vote Quinn out of office, but based on the messages that de Blasio is telegraphing to the community, voting Quinn out is not enough to bring about reforms. Now that she will soon be gone, what else do you need to do to reclaim your government ?

Please think about this, because the movement to bring about reforms is not over, yet. The movement needs you to step forward, because not everybody is fighting for reforms, and compromises are being made that may not serve your best interests. The only way for you to make sure that your best interests are being served is for you to step up and speak out. Your voice and opinion counts. Make it be heard.

2013-09-23 Rudin Management Company - James Capalino NYC Lobbyist & Client Search Result

Christine Quinn, Jennifer Cunningham, Stephen Berger, and Hospital Closings

How did Stephen Berger get away with closing so many hospitals? The story begins like this ....

An excerpt from Chapter 9 of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, available now for a free preview on Scribd :

The hospital closings called for by the Berger Commission were formulated at a time when only some hospital patients were covered by job-based health insurance, and hospitals were forced to write down the economic costs from treating underinsured and uninsured patients. The Berger Commission, headed by a Wall Street banker, Stephen Berger, was only capable of seeing the provision of full-service hospital care from perspective of profits, losses, and debts, instead of from the perspective of providing people with the human right to healthcare. “We have a history in this state of pumping money into the system and not letting hospitals close even if they should,” Mr. Berger told The New York Times, adding, “You have to right-size the system, you have to shrink it, that is No. 1.” In typical Wall Street fashion of divorcing any moral dilemma from situational ethics, hospital closings were pushed as inevitable, and patients were expected to have to deal with it. This was about a decade before "Obamacare" would extend healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Back then, Mr. Berger observed overcapacity among hospitals, which had to be cut. However, in the future, Mr. Berger’s draconian cuts would prove to gut healthcare infrastructure leading up to the time when Obamacare would lead to a large influx of newly covered healthcare patients. But even without knowing that healthcare coverage would be expanded within the next decade, back then healthcare advocates knew about the dangers of past outbreaks, pandemics, and unforeseen uses of bioterrorism agents, such as anthrax. There were reasons why it was penny wise and dollar foolish to make drastic cuts to full-service hospital capacity in New York City.

One healthcare union, 1199/S.E.I.U., had to scramble to deal with the fallout over job losses from the impending hospital closings. Jennifer Cunningham, who at that time worked as a spokesperson and political operative for 1199 and would later go on to work for Christine as a political campaign consultant, was more concerned at the time about employee retraining and not about the interruption of patient-centered care. The hit list of hospitals that would be targeted for closure by the Berger Commission came to be known as the Berger Commission Report, and Christine, as chair of the City Council Health Committee, was largely absent from the initial public conversation in 2004 and 2005 around Mr. Berger’s recommendation for hospital closings. Taking her cue from former Speaker Gifford Miller’s precedent of maintaining silence on the controversial West Side Stadium until the project’s outcome was clear, Christine was not visible in the resistance movement to fight the Berger Commission Report’s recommendations until very late in 2006, when the City Council issued its own report just weeks before the Berger Commission Report’s final recommendations would go into effect on January 1, 2007.

Read more : Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, available now for a free preview on Scribd.

Who's Been "Moving On Up" During the Bloomberg-Quinn Era ?

A new video posted on YouTube takes a satirical look of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s political record. The video is set to a Karaoke recording of ''Moving On Up'' -- the famous theme song from the hit sitcom, The Jeffersons, and the video uses sarcasm when Speaker Quinn denies some of the most controversial political choices she’s made.

Among the issues addressed in this short video are :

• the $30,000 in campaign contributions Speaker Quinn accepted from Rudin Management Company, which basically foreclosed on St. Vincent’s Hospital ;
• Speaker Quinn’s controversial support for police commissioner Ray Kelly, who oversaw a culture of racism and brutality at the NYPD ;
• Speaker Quinn’s controversial use of fictitious accounts to hide her political slush fund ; and
• the ever-changing rationale for extending term limits.

Comparing Christine Quinn with Dr. Jack Kevorkian : Assisting with Early Hospital Deaths

Is Christine Quinn the "Doctor Death" of New York City hospital closings ?

Will Long Island College Hospital and Interfaith Medical Center be added to this list of hospitals that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has allowed Real Estate Developers to close ?

Christine Quinn had 10 chances to save 10 NYC hospitals from closing or downsizing.

She saved none.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, ten hospitals have been closed or down-sized :

• Westchester Square Medical Center in the Bronx became bankrupt and was sold in 2013 ; it is expected to be down-sized into an urgent care center
• Peninsula Hospital Center in Far Rockaway, Queens, filed for bankruptcy and was closed in 2012
• North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010
• St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village was shut down in 2010, so that the Rudin family could build luxury condos
• St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009
• Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica went bankrupt in 2009
• Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills closed in 2008
• Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008
• Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed in 2008
• St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan closed in 2007

If your life depends on comprehensive emergency care, how safe will you be with Christine Quinn as mayor ?

@stopchrisquinn

Rudin Family paid politicians 200,000 roses in luxury condo conversion prostitution deal

Scott Stringer received almost $8,000 from members of the billionaire Rudin real estate empire, before he rendered his recommendation in support of the Rudin luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Democratic candidate for NYC comptroller Scott Rudin Stringer received sizable campaign contributions form members of the Rudin family before he made his recommendation in the ULURP application to approve the Rudin condo conversion plan in November 2011.

Mr. Stringer, who was acting in official capacity as Manhattan Borough President, makes recommendations to the New York City Council in all zone-busting ULURP applications that come up for a vote. Mr. Stringer recommended that the City Council approve the Rudin luxury condo conversion plan, but the media made no mention of the inherent conflict of interest in the Rudin family's large campaign donations. These campaign donations were made during a time when the Rudin family were anticipating plans to develop the property underneath St. Vincent's, before the hospital was driven into bankruptcy, and Mr. Stringer cashed the checks way in advance of having to render his ULURP recommendation.

New York City Campaign Finance Board records indicate that Mr. Stringer accepted $500.00 from Madeleine Rudin Johnson, $3,850.00 from Beth Rudin DeWoody, $500.00 from Eric Rudin, $2,000.00 from Jack Rudin, and $1,000.00 from Bill Rudin. These reported donations bundle into a total of : $7,850.00. It's not known if there are other, unreported campaign donations, that might have been made on top of these amounts.

Did the $7,850.00 in campaign donations made by Rudin family members influence Scott Stringer's recommendation on the St. Vincent's luxury condo conversion ULRUP application ???

Because there is an appearance of "pay to play" or quid pro quo, was Mr. Stringer prostituting himself to the Rudin family ? We already know that campaign donations allegedly play a role in New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn determining her official acts in office. Does the same hold true for Mr. Stringer ?

In total, the members of the Rudin family contributed over $200,000 in campaign donations to various politicians, each of whom would have had some kind of influence over the fate of the Rudin luxury condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.

The Rudin campaign donations made during the 2009, 2013 election cycles follow.

2013-07-08 Rudin-Rudin Advanced Search - New York City Campaign Finance Board

2013-07-08 Johnson-Rudin Advanced Search - New York City Campaign Finance Board

2013-07-08 DeWoody-Rudin Advanced Search - New York City Campaign Finance Board

Bill de Blasio Finally Joins Fight To Save Brooklyn Hospitals

I don't know how much he really did to try to save St. Vincent's Hospital, but it is finally a good sign that he is at least speaking about the need to stop the hospital closings.

Any merger between two weak hospitals is a bad idea. We should fund each hospital so that it can fully meet the needs of their own patients.

VIDEO : Drone Like Device Flying Over Luxury Condo Conversion Of St. Vincent's Hospital

Is Bill Rudin using a #drone like device for security over the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital ? youtu.be/XXOU3C-YQNk

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 6, 2013

Is Rudin Management Company using a drone-like device to create a security checkpoint around the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital ? Has Rudin Management Company received clearance to operate a private security drone from NYPD ?

Christine Quinn's History Of Using Hate Crimes For Political Gain

From The Village Voice :

"... the prospect of Quinn's active participation in the march provoked a sort of counter-protest by a small contingent of activists who are unimpressed with Quinn's record. As the main rally moved south on Greenwich Avenue, marchers passed a tiny contingent of activists holding up a sign on the island intersection at Seventh Avenue. 'We need a hospital, we don't need condos,' it read. The side-vigil raised the question of why Carson was taken to Beth Israel, on First Avenue, and whether he could have been saved if he was treated nearby. The handful of activists standing in the shadow of the building that used to be St. Vincent's Hospital, now being converted into 350 luxury condo units, criticized Quinn for signing off on the zoning change that made this development possible, even though the City Council speaker's brand had been stamped all over the larger march itself."

Did New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn cancel her planned political exploitation of Monday night's Mark Carson vigil, after The Village Voice and Michael Petrelis exposed these concerns ?

Speaker Quinn has a history of exploiting tragedy for political gain.

Earlier this year, after former mayor Ed Koch passed away, Speaker Quinn's campaign staff were trying to figure out how to exploit Mayor Koch's endorsement of Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, even after he had died -- and he was no longer around to approve of the campaign's messaging.

And in 1998, while she was in her first political campaign to be elected to the City Council, Ms. Quinn was using a spike in bias crimes against the LGBT community as an excuse to call for canceling that year's annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.

SIDEBAR : Please watch this video, which I just discovered this morning, which explains why it might be more accurate to describe the discrimination against the LGBTQ community as "heterosexual-supremacy" instead of using the term "homophobia."