Bush Cuts, Spitzer Cuts
At a press conference today to denounce the Bush health care cuts, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer both indicated that the president's proposals are different in substance and spirit than Spitzer's.
At the same time, Schumer said he didn't agree with all of Spitzer's cuts, although he declined to specify which ones.
Shortly afterwards, Hillary singled out the president's multi-million-dollar cut to the Graduate Medical Education program (GME).
She said, "And Ken Raske [President of the Greater New York Hospital Association] just told me the budget eliminates Medicaid payments for something called Graduate Medical Education. Now that would cut, according to Ken's calculation, $1.2 billion to the state of New York. Now, what is that money used for? It is used to train physicians, nurses, health care professionals. That's one of the reasons why America's health care is so good. Because we invest in the training of those who take care of us. That too is on the chopping block."
When I asked Hillary about Spitzer's intention to cut the same program, she said, "I don't know."
-- Azi Paybarah
Very intersting argument
Clinton clearly hasn't been to a doctor lately if she thinks American health care is "so good." Doctors are overwhelmed by HMOs and complex insurance plans that ensure that 33 cents out of every health dollar go to the insurance industry. And apparently she doesn't know that our hospitals kill 95,000 patients a year by medical mistakes.
Right, because the industry is such a money-loser that it can't fund the training of its own personnel. Uh-huh.
The big difference b/w Spitzer's proposal and Bush's proposal is that Spitzer redirects the money to expand health coverage for children. Bush is just cutting the money period.
Incidentally, Spitzer is right on the policy point - we need to get away from subsidizing institutions and start providing coverage to people. It will be interesting to see how much power Ken Raske and Dennis Rivera have to defeat the new Govs proposal.