Obamacare is Downsizing Glen Cove–Repeal It!

Cross off the mayor’s decision to sue Glen Cove Hospital as a major factor in downsizing Glen Cove Hospital. Now it’s time to start talking about what really caused the transformation.

At issue is a law so disastrous that even its supporters from the likes of the AFL-CIO and Teamsters are turning away. Even the members of Congress who passed it exempted themselves from the mandates they passed and are now imposing on us. Our representatives in Congress–Rep. Steve Israel, Sen. Charles Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand are among the Democrats who have said “laws for thee but not for me.” And they probably aren’t paying much attention to the consequences the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” is having on our economy.

We’re seeing it in Glen Cove already. NS-LIJ officials have said in press releases and articles in Newsday and here on Patch that Obamacare influenced their decision to transform Glen Cove Hospital into an ambulatory care center.

Meanwhile, the thousands of “Save Glen Cove Hospital” petition signatures have not been met with any real plan of action from government, at least in public statements. As a result, nothing has been done to suggest to NS-LIJ that economic conditions might improve.

Hospitals across the country are downsizing due to Obamacare–even the Cleveland Clinic has announced layoffs. Glen cove’s situation is just as dire, as the law makes the already-marginalized business of accommodating Medicare patients much more difficult. On top of that, hospital beds at Glen Cove Hospital were already chronically underutilized at about half of their supply on average. A business without customers cannot survive, and even if NS-LIJ is not out to make a profit, it still must allocate its resources efficiently if it wants to further its organization’s mission statement and goals.

Even pro-growth incentives (which I’d be in favor of) to grow the city’s economy and population probably still wouldn’t increase utilization of hospital beds, and I think we’d agree that we want people healthy. But there is something that could help hospitals here and across the country–the repeal of Obamacare.

Nancy Pelosi said that we had to “pass it to see what’s in it.” At the time of this writing, the RealClearPolitics polling average reveals that 52 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare, while just 38 percent still support it. What could the support be among petition-signers, especially if a surveyor first mentioned that hospital officials cite Obamacare as a major reason for downsizing?

The Hospital is not the only reason to repeal Obamacare. Hiring advertisements around Long Island already make clear, “up to 25 hours” to avoid the law’s mandates. We’re becoming a part-time economy. Even worse, the federal government is set to force young people to purchase insurance plans that cost in a month or two what catastrophic coverage would cost in a year if left to the market!

I sincerely care about the poor and uninsured, but healthcare just isn’t made affordable and accessible by government from thousands of pages of law. If, as a country we really want to make healthcare affordable, we should unleash free enterprise. There are already examples of what this would look like: Whole Foods’ employee coverage is much more democratic and affordable than most employer plans, and lets employees pick what they want covered with health savings accounts. Heck, I’d support the free-market idea of something like the negative income tax and let people choose whether they want to go to a place like the Oklahoma City Surgery Center, which doesn’t take insurance and advertises prices, and whose majority of customers are, you guessed it, the working poor!

Instead, Obamacare destroys choice, competition, and innovation, and we have already seen its consequences on our economy, especially in the case of the Hospital. If Obamacare will not make healthcare more affordable for young people and the poor–the very people the law’s supporters claim to be helping–why continue with the madness?!

Rather than petitioning NS-LIJ, we the people, both citizens and politicians in local government should be petitioning our representation in Washington to get behind the full repeal of Obamacare. We won’t achieve repeal by talking politely, but if the overwhelming majority of us in Glen Cove and the 3rd Congressional District oppose Obamacare and the destruction it is causing, our representatives will be forced to get behind repeal.

Local Democrats shouldn’t be silenced by national partisanship. This issue should bring Democrats and Republicans together to simply do what’s right.

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