
5th July 2009
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| Politics.ie Member | | Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 8,522
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Originally Posted by toxic avenger So she essentially connived in a Chicago version of 'Care in the Community', penny-pinching by getting rid of the poor they were being subsidised to look after. How responsible was she herself, did she actually 'engineer', or partially do so, the scheme to get rid of the poorer patients? I'm mindful that the source here is Fox News.
If she did then it just shows how psychopathically good some people are at acting as if they are the total opposite to what they really are... | She did, and was very highly paid for doing it. Here's the original report the Malkin's blog was based on: Obama Camp Has Many Ties to Wife's Employer - washingtonpost.com Quote: |
Shortly after Barack Obama joined the U.S. Senate in 2005, the medical center promoted Michelle Obama to vice president of community and external relations, and more than doubled her salary. She is now on leave from the $317,000-a-year post, in which she sought to bridge the gap between the wealthy institution and its poorer neighbors. The hospital declined to discuss the budget for her program or her input into budgetary decisions
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The hospital's general counsel, Susan Sher, said she approached Michelle Obama in 2001 and asked her to develop plans to bring the hospital closer to the surrounding neighborhood. Sher is a longtime friend of Michelle Obama; they worked together at Chicago City Hall, where Sher was head of Mayor Richard M. Daley's law department.
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"We really didn't know what this office would be, so it was really her creation," Sher said. Today, Sher said, Obama's office has grown to include more than 20 staffers and has proved a success at boosting the medical center's image.
The hospital told state regulators it spent $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 -- 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the bipartisan, nonprofit Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. That is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in Cook County.
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As a nonprofit, the University of Chicago Medical Center receives annual tax breaks worth nearly five times as much as it spends on charity care, the analysis found.
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"That's shameful," Young said of the percentages. "They are arguably, if not defrauding, then at least taking advantage of a public subsidy. We would like to see them give more than the minimum. The need is there."
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Edward Novak, president of Chicago's Sacred Heart Hospital, declined to discuss the center's initiative in particular but dismissed as "bull" attempts to justify such programs as good for patients. "What they're really saying is, 'Don't use our emergency room because it will cost us money, and we don't want the public-aid population,' " Novak said.
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