Even discounting for the accusatory tone that inevitably comes with any article that includes the words "a three-month investigation by the New York Times" and that lists, at the end of the story, five reporters who contributed in addition to the one who wrote the piece, today's front-page Times article on Wyckoff Hospital is a fine example of the corruption that can ensue when government money flows into health care. I've made the point here before about the cars driven by the doctors treating Medicare and Medicaid patients. Now the Times finds a hospital administration driving a $160,000 Bentley, then driven in a hospital-owned Lincoln Town Car and Cadillac Escalade, who says in his own defense, ""You know how many guys had 500 SE Mercedes there?"
"Welfare cadillac" was the shorthand used back during the Reagan administration for this sort of thing. Maybe it's time for a new catch-phrase: "health care cadillac."
The same doctors and their allies who commented on the last post will probably rise to defend themselves here, and let me say pre-emptively that I really don't mind if you drive a fancy or expensive car; in fact, I hope you enjoy it. I just resent being taxed at the state and federal level to pay for it.
