‘Brooklyn Fairy Tale’

Re: “Brooklyn Fairy Tale,” Editorial, June 6, 2005. ACORN was founded by George Wiley, but the philosophy of “flood [the] rolls … overload the system” was the brainchild of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. The Columbia University sociologists proposed it in 1966, just subsequent to the Watts Riots. The goal was to create a guaranteed national income, which passed in the House and died in the Senate in 1971.

While I agree that subsidized housing can – under certain circumstances – foster dependency, this is not necessarily the case. Without subsidized housing, many decent, hardworking New Yorkers would be on the street due to the astronomically high cost of living. While there is that “ten per cent lunatic fringe,” the majority of my neighbors in a Mitchell-Lama building are struggling, working-class people, solid citizens who for a variety of reasons have been as yet unable to realize the American Dream. Perhaps no greater example of the success of affordable housing can be found than in the fabled “Fort Apache” area of the South Bronx, which while not a Shangri-La, has literally risen from the ashes of the 1970s and 1980s; decent housing has replaced blocks upon blocks of burnt-out buildings.

NATHAN F. WEINER
Bronx

Nonprofit Health Care

Re: “Health Care We Can Profit From,” Editorial, June 1, 2006. As the chairman of the Board of Governors of Healthcare Trustees of New York State, I write in response to your editorial’s assertion that state laws restricting publicly traded companies from owning or operating hospitals somehow mean New Yorkers are denied access to affordable, high-quality, efficient health care.

I am proud of our state’s not-for-profit tradition, which focuses on the needs of patients and communities, rather than the interests of corporate stockholders. Board members of every not-for-profit hospital in our state are unpaid volunteers – citizen stewards who live and work in the communities their hospitals serve. Our mission is to make sure every person who walks into a hospital receives the highest quality health care possible.

We understand how important it is to expand programs that provide care to the underserved. These programs benefit all of us and are part of our mission of improving access to health care. Compare this operating philosophy to the governance and mission of large, publicly traded, for-profit hospital chains, which are in business to make money for stockholders and to ensure a positive financial return on investments. By definition, their missions discourage investing in community health care.

We also care deeply about the cost of care – and one of our core duties as fiduciaries of hospitals is to assure that our hospitals operate as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. The boards of not-for-profit hospitals take this responsibility seriously.

Rather than jumping to the conclusion that we need large, publicly traded, for-profit hospital corporations in New York State, consider that every day our state’s 209 not-for-profit hospitals treat patients who lack health insurance or are underinsured, providing almost $1.6 billion per year in uncompensated care, the cost of which is only partially subsidized. These hospitals provide services that are unprofitable but extraordinarily necessary – neonatal intensive-care services, mammography and trauma services, community health programs, and so on.

Before advocating a repeal of our tradition of not-for-profit health care, The New York Sun should evaluate carefully the full benefits New Yorkers receive from our high-quality, community-owned, not-for-profit hospital system.

CARLOS NAUDON
Chairman, Healthcare Trustees of New York State
Manhattan

‘Slow Day at the Races’

In “A Slow Day at the Races With the Philosopher of Belmont” [New York, June 7, 2005], Lauren Mechling states that “Belmont racetrack is like your local public library in that not very many people show up …” I think this is a bad analogy and a slight to the library. People are always lined up at my local library on 78th Street and York Avenue. It’s a myth that libraries are deserted – quite the opposite: They are a haven for many people from the elderly to children.

LINDA EKSTRAND
Manhattan

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