Jim Dwyer’s column about executive pay at regional hospitals underscores the need to take a fresh look at the idea of the “task force.” Tasked with recommending spending and service cuts throughout the hospital system, which is broadly supported by state and local taxes, a force composed of industry consultants made sure that the seven-figure salaries paid to top executives were kept off the negotiating table.

A proposal to allow public financing for only the first $1 million in wages for an executive died before it even reached the task force. “It was classic how it was killed,” said Judy Wessler, director of the Commission on the Public’s Health System, an advocacy group that had suggested the limits.

“We submitted the proposal in writing, met with the state staff members about it, then testified for our two minutes at a hearing,” Ms. Wessler said. “Then in the written summary of all the 4,000 proposals, they twisted the wording of ours so that it would be impossible to implement. Then they said it was not viable, so it wasn’t even put up for a vote.”

State officials acknowledged that the proposal had been drastically changed from its original meaning, but did not explain how that happened. In an e-mail exchange provided by Ms. Wessler, Jason A. Helgerson, the state’s Medicaid director, apologized “for not having had the time to do all we wish to do.” Mr. Helgerson was not available for an interview on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said.
The subject of executive wages would have been familiar to the task force, many of whose members came from the health care industry. One had worked as a consultant for Mount Sinai Medical Center, which received $250 million in Medicaid and paid its chief executive $2.7 million in 2008. A co-chairman of the task force, Michael Dowling, was paid $2.4 million in 2008 by North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, which received about $220 million from Medicaid.

It’s nonsense like this that, sooner or later, brings on the likes of the Tea Party.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 at 10:30 am.