Arthur Springer • Mar.09.2009 at 09:56:pm

The fact that aides to the governor are issuing statements in their own name is a testament to the further collapse of the Paterson administration.

Gov. Paterson’s health care mouthpiece may be a genial lawyer, but he has little knowledge of the clinical essentials of health care, no clinical credentials and an apparent allergy to the minimum requirements of high school freshman English composition. True to the bias of his legal calling, he seems to believe that in the service of his client, he can say anything he cares to without having to come up with any factual documentation to support his claims. This lawyerly leaning is one of the chief supports of the pathology of government in Albany. “Advocacy” is not enough to support the radical reorganization of health services Baker and his cohorts throughout the HMO lobby seem to favor. This coalition cannot be allowed to destroy a continuum of care with comprehensive services for all New Yorkers with public and private sector coverage.

Health care has been, and must remain, a resource for all … including people with acute, emergency, chronic, disabling and rare health problems that do not yield easily, if at all, to political rhetoric about “prevention,” spun by political hacks.

I have just come thru a ten-month siege of rare health problems that are being diagnosed and treated successfully in the traditional Medicaid “fee for service” program. I probably would not be alive today if I had been forced into the kind of mindless, coercive health care program the “preventative” lobbyists and the Paterson administration have been pushing, using seemingly appealing rhetoric to disguise imperialistic compulsory managed care, overseen by lawyers and civil servants with no clinical competence.

The first admonition of the Hippocratic Oath is Do No Harm!. It is high time the propagandists of the HMO lobby and its pawns in government accepted that principle.

And, by the way, four months have now passed since the state issued a “public notice” concerning compulsory managed care for people with HIV/AIDS and continues to withhold this proposal from public scrutiny. What are they afraid of?

Arthur Springer
MAP/EIP Program Participant
& Lay Advocate for People With Disabilities
150 W. 80th St. — 4A
New York, NY 10024-6313
voice & fax: 212-580-9143
as99@verizon.net

arthur springer • Mar.28.2009 at 01:08:pm

TIME’S UP FOR ALBANY BUDGET GAMES

Mar27
Special Budget Report: Gov. Paterson’s Budget Proposal Explained
Eagle Newspapers Syracuse NY

http://www.cnylink.com/cnynews/view_news.php?ne…
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RE: “In addition, state Medicaid spending would be limited by reforming ineffective hospital, nursing home and home care reimbursement systems to direct spending to more appropriate primary and community-based settings.”
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This is pure propaganda from the HMO lobby that has a stranglehold on the Paterson administration. Reductions in services at hospital outpatient clinics that provide comprehensive care, and expansion of socalled primary care services that are extremely limited reflects prejudice and discrimination, and is a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act and will be the subject of many lawsuits if this budget provision is passed. Whether or not the legislature adopts this ideological nonsense, the proposal contributes to a prejudicial hostile environment for people with disabilities and all others who require something other than World War II assembly-line Army health care.

Woe to those who ignore this warning. Woe Woe Woe Go back to your HMO lobbying jobs. Get out of the government. Government represents all of the people, not just those you are paid for. Stop threatening the lives of others. Woe Woe Woe if you continue to do so, especially if you do so in the name of “reform.” Are you listening David? Are you still smoking Mr. President? Are the Manatt law firm lobbyists and alumni listening?