Closing Hospitals for Medical Costs and Education?
Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer is running for governor of New York. He plans to cut medical costs for New York in order to cut property taxes. In order to make these medical cost cuts, Mr. Spitzer says New York will have to close several hospitals. By making these medical cost cuts, property taxes will decrease by $6 billion over three years, thus giving thousands of uninsured children medical care. This cut in property taxes will also drastically increase funding for education.
What is the cost of closing hospitals? Would too many people lose jobs? Also, would the closed hospitals cause overcrowding in other hospitals? Will the benefits of helping children outweigh the costs?
1 comment:
Drew, your interpretation of Spitzer's tax and spending plans is a bit convoluted. As I read the NY Times article, Spitzer has made a number of promises in order to win some votes during the upcoming NY governor's race. Among Spitzer's promises are to cut property taxes for homeowners, increase spending on education, and increase spending on medical coverage for children. The big question is how will he pay for these campaign promises? The article you link to indicates that Spitzer is planning to close a few hospitals in order to consolidate on state health care spending in addition to other proposed cuts.
The last two sentences of your first paragraph would suggest that the hospital closings are inextricably linked to the proposals to cut property taxes and increase education spending. They are, in fact, separate proposals and in no way is there a direct causal relationship between them.
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