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Challenges unions to make concessions to save 1,300 jobs
Gov. Chris Christie announced Thursday that, if needed, he is willing to provide $5 million in state funds to keep Hoboken University Medical Center operating in the wake of the city council’s decision not to ask local taxpayers to save the hospital.
Without the governor’s offer, the state’s oldest hospital could have been forced to close within the next few weeks and create the risk of municipal authority default.
“It would appear that there are two primary issues that stand in the way of keeping Hoboken University Medical Center open,” Christie said. “First, the refusal by local unions to provide necessary concessions and secondly, the city council’s rejection of $5 million in funding which is vital to securing the hospital’s future.
“It is completely unacceptable that the city council placed local politics ahead of the 1,300 employees at the Hoboken University Medical Center and the people in the community who rely on the critical services provided by this hospital,” the governor added. “This administration is not going to allow political bickering to put this hospital in jeopardy and potentially have a negative and irresponsible impact on the city’s finances, which is why the state will contribute the $5 million, if needed, to ensure the Hoboken University Medical Center deal closes and the hospital stays open.
“With the availability of this funding, it is now up to the unions to ensure the hospital stays open, people continue to have access to emergency services, 1,300 jobs are saved, and municipal default is averted.”—TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
For all non-locals, this is the translation of what is going on politically:
Understand that it is not about the Hospital, but the potential of the Hospital's ground that covers a city block.
The Catholic Church knew that Hoboken is a cesspool of corruption. They owned the old hospital "St.Mary" - so they put rules in the deal with the city to ensure that they would not have a Sharpe James's girlfriend issue. The city machine with Russo Jr, played along, along with Donald Scarinci -of Scarinci & Hollenbeck aka - Dem Troubleshooter & Menendez evil twin.
The deal with Bayonne's Medical Center was about to be made for them to buy Hoboken Hospital. The machine was going to ensure that the new owners got a good deal on price because of RE market issues, altruism, but more importantly Bayonne's owners m.o. is that they do like a leveraged buy out and start selling assets -with Bayonne MC they sold the hospital's real estate to RE investors and they rent the property.
Remember - Bayonne's bid for Hoboken was not the highest, there were other interested qualified parties with bigger bids that did not win. So Bayonne's owner won, because the Hoboken machine (Russo, Scarinci,etc) wanted it to win, as they would play along with allowing the Hospital's property to be sold into the RE Market, because you have to understand the business model of Bayonne & Meadowlands and other newly organize for-profit hospitals.
This model could change overnite & they would be out of business -- they use a loophole in NJ State law that tells insurance companies to pay the full amount as per contract with the policy holder whether in/out of network >So let's say colonoscopy in in network hospital is $5000 and your out of pocket is 20% -insurance company pays $4000 & you pay $1000 - What the for-profit hospitals do is they charge $20,000 insurance company pays at their 50% out of network rate, technically you owe $10,000 but the hospital waives it off with a very small fee - So you got your procedure for $50 instead of $1,000 and the hospital get $10,000 instead of contracted in network $4000.
Overcharging is their business model. There have been already stories about Meadowland Hospital massively overcharging for procedure.
Back to politics - Well anyway, when Cammarano got caught and Zimmer won, it ruined the best plans laid out by the machine, and that is why the machine forced the bankruptcy before the sale of the hospital to its new owner.
The machine wanted to maximize the public subsidy the new hospital owner got, because it would transfer to the annointed second buyer of the hospital property whether the hospital was operating still or not. But only if they had total control -which they have not.