For 17 years I was President and CEO of a safety net hospital. TrumpCare will “disinsure” twenty million+ people and devastate the hospitals we all depend on.

August 23, 2017

A little background…. I was appointed President and CEO of Jersey City Medical Center (JCMC) in 1989, one year after JCMC had been converted to not-for-profit governance after a long and colorful history as a public hospital (including bankruptcy protection from 1982 to 1985). JCMC was and still is Hudson County’s (500,000+ residents) regional referral

On July 4th as we respect and admire hospital staff members who are working 24/7, it is interesting to look at hospital care during the Revolutionary War

August 23, 2017

From 1967 to 1970, during the Vietnam War, I served first as a 2nd Lieutenant and Chief Administrative Officer of the 4th Casualty Staging Flight attached to Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center, Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. We received combat casualties still in battlefield bandages, often within 24 hours of injury, and either admitted

“To manage and (eventually) reverse the opioid epidemic, state Medicaid programs should now take a deeper look at the role prescribing plays…”,

August 22, 2017

“The drug industry was more than willing to meet the need of increased opioid administration and more than willing to advance its usage….. Adding to this pressure to overprescribe powerful analgesics was the decision by Medicare to adjust payments to hospitals according to their Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys. This naïve

As Washington dawdles, the States step in on the opioid crisis, with initiatives and lawyers

August 17, 2017

“It has to be both law enforcement and health, we have to do more of everything because of the crisis that we’re in,” said Baum, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy… “We need to draw a distinction between people who are basically engaged in drug use, drug possession, and

The Trump administration “blinks”; provides Obamacare funding

August 16, 2017

.“The Trump administration will make this month’s Obamacare payments to insurers, a White House spokesman confirmed today, despite the president’s repeated threats to cut off the subsidies and potentially tip the insurance markets into turmoil. It’s widely anticipated that insurers would jack up premiums or exit the Obamacare markets altogether if the subsidies, worth about

American College of Physicians Says Hate Crimes are Public Health Issue

August 16, 2017

At a recent meeting of their Board of Regents, the American College of Physicians (ACP) adopted a new policy statement recognizing hate crimes as a public health issue. “It is imperative that physicians, and all people, speak out against hate and hate crimes and against those who foster or perpetrate it, as was seen in

“We would never tolerate a situation where only one in 10 people with cancer or diabetes gets treatment, and yet we do that with substance-abuse disorders,” (A)

August 11, 2017

“Having recognized the widespread and devastating nature of the opioid crisis, governors are taking action to stem the tide of opioid use disorder and overdose. States are uniquely positioned to do this work, because they play a central role in protecting public health and safety; regulating health care providers; establishing prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs);