Once she got to the WH---Michie the Moocher started living large.
In May 2009 she was wearing Lanvin's posh $540.00
sneakers made of suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and
metallic pink toe caps----at a D.C. food bank.
Posted on 09/21/2012 9:38:02 AM PDT by dennisw
Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama has positioned himself as the champion of the poor and all those that can't afford health insurance.
Maybe he should direct his efforts to the hospital his wife Michelle works for, as it appears the University of Chicago Medical Center "steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities."
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Saturday (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer saw the light, photo courtesy NY Daily News):
Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment. Hospital officials say such patients hinder their ability to focus on more critically ill patients in need of specialized care, such as cancer treatment and organ transplants.
In fact, the Obama campaign has multiple ties to this program:
Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program -- called the Urban Health Initiative -- to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama's wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center's board, backed the Axelrod firm's hiring, hospital officials said. [...]
But the Urban Health Initiative has critics, including South Side residents and medical professionals.
"I've heard complaints from a handful of constituents, but I've also had calls from people in the health care profession complaining," said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, whose 4th Ward is just north of the hospital. "The medical professionals who have come to me are accusing the university of dumping patients on its neighboring institutions. ... Whether it's being implemented in the way that's in the best interest of the patient, I can't tell you."
Sen. John McCain, Obama's Republican opponent, criticized the Democratic presidential hopeful Friday for having pledged on the campaign trail to expand health care for Americans at the same time his top political strategist "was running a campaign to cut coverage for the poor."
This does seem to be an absurd hypocrisy that media members should be all over, don't you agree?
For its part, the Washington Post published a lengthy piece about this hospital -- and the Obama campaign's connections to it -- on Friday (emphasis added throughout):
Quentin Young, a local physician whose five-doctor medical office lists Barack Obama among its patients, said that in past decades the South Side often viewed the institution as a "citadel of exclusion," more interested in research than the well-being of its neighbors. [...]
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.
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.
Wow. So the hospital is receiving in tax breaks FIVE TIMES what it spends on charity care! This doesn't sit well with some in the community:
Quentin Young, the South Side physician, described the medical center's level of charity spending as "ludicrous." Young, known in Chicago for having been the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s personal physician, is chairman of the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, a Chicago-based nonprofit that advocates health-care reform. Young considered himself an ally of Barack Obama while he was a state legislator.
"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."
Hmmm. So, Martin Luther King Jr.'s former doctor thinks what's going on at this hospital is "shameful" and potentially fraudulent. But there's more:
Critics, however, describe the program as an attempt to ensure that the hospital retains only affluent patients with insurance. [...]
The media concentrated on the important issues of 2008 -
The status of Joe the Plumber’s trade license
and
The DNA of Palin’s Down Syndrome child
To be fair to Mickey, she did her job good, the Hospital got value for what they paid her.
After her husband secured a $3MM State Grant for the hospital, Wookie’s job was to devise legal cover for shunting un/under-insured patients to other “for profit” hospitals.
If this was continuous, what would have happened to the for-profit healthcare providers...?
Once she got to the WH---Michie the Moocher started living large.
In May 2009 she was wearing Lanvin's posh $540.00
sneakers made of suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and
metallic pink toe caps----at a D.C. food bank.
Her job was to be the minority face of the institution’s push to get costly indigents out of their hospital beds. The hospital paid her more than $300K/yr for this service, which sum she gladly accepted. Her job was to win the silence of Chicago’s “community organizer” population. I don’t know how well she did this. They’re all about money too, and if there’s no money in it - shakedown or otherwise - they’re probably not interested.
I figured she had an endorsement deal, probably set up through her brother the basketball coach.
No surprise really. That is a big concept behind 0bamaCare. You can’t provide care for 10 million more people with no new doctors and regs that require insurance companies to insure everyone for everything at one low price. It’s part of the scam of Dr. Barry’s Medicine Show.
Amazing! $540 for sneakers that look like bag lady shoes.
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