Hospital Lobby Pulls Funding for Ads Against Spitzer Cuts
One of the state's largest health care lobbies is pulling its funding from a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz against Governor Spitzer's Medicaid cuts because its leadership does not think it is the most effective strategy to get funding restored, a top hospital executive said.
The decision by the Greater New York Hospital Association to pull back funding and have its partner in the health care battle, Local 1199, exclusively bankroll the advertisements was made public yesterday. But the president of Local 1199, Dennis Rivera, cited the governor's repeated references to hospital executive salaries as a reason.
The hospital association represents the city's major medical institutions, while the union represents the facilities' lower-paid employees.
Mr. Spitzer has attacked hospital CEO salaries as astronomical, saying, "They are the ones who are financing these ads." In a statement yesterday, Mr. Rivera said that "in order to keep the focus where it belongs," Local 1199 will fund the campaign alone starting Saturday.
But the CEO of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, Dr. Spencer Foreman, offered a different reason for the move, saying Local 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association "have somewhat differing views on the effectiveness of the ads."
"The union believes that the ads are working and should be pursued. The association believes that the ads may be working but that they shouldn't be pursued at this point because we're getting a backfire," he said in a telephone interview.
Dr. Foreman, who is on the board of the hospital association, said the two organizations are still working toward the same goal and that he views the union as partner.
"It breaks my heart to see us go separate ways, but in this we have a disagreement," Dr. Foreman said.
The two organizations are still working together on other fronts to persuade Mr. Spitzer to restore the cuts.
The philosophical split seems to be a sign that Mr. Spitzer's take-no-prisoners strategy is gaining traction.
Dr. Foreman said the industry is not at all happy with losing funding, but the goal is to come up with a "compromise that we can all live with."
A spokesman for the hospital association, Brian Conway, said only that the "GNYHA is still 100% committed to the goal of a negotiated budget that protects patients."
The president of the association, Kenneth Raske, and Mr. Rivera stood together yesterday to address a rally of about 20,000 people outside Mr. Spitzer's Manhattan office. The raucous crowd of hospital workers included many waving signs with slogans such as "Spitzer: Short on Facts, Long on Attacks."
"Governor Spitzer, you are not being honest. You are not being straightforward," Mr. Rivera said.
The head of the Transit Workers Union, Roger Toussaint, who led his members on an illegal 60-day strike in 2005, said that in their fight against the Medicaid cuts, the hospital workers will not "be out there alone."
