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The
Michigan Socialist | News | Michigan
For-profit medicine
bears fruit...
Detroit
Medical Center goes bust
By L. MEYERS
The
Michigan Socialist
THE DETROIT MEDICAL CENTER (DMC) is the
primary care provider for the people of Detroit. Every year,
it handles tens of thousands of patients, many of whom have no
insurance and cannot pay out of their own pockets for
services.
This is because health care in the United
States continues to be a for-profit industry, operating on the
same basis as other capitalist businesses. The difference,
though, is that health care is not something that is a
"personal choice," like buying a car or furniture -- it is,
quite literally, a matter of life or death.
And now, we are seeing the fruits of
for-profit health care.
On June 16, Governor Jennifer Granholm, Wayne
County Executive Robert Ficano and Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick agreed to offer support to the failing DMC and to
come up with short-term "solutions" to keep the medical
conglomerate from closing its doors.
The DMC is running an unsecured debt of over
$360 million, most of which is claimed to be the result of
poor and uninsured patients being unable to cover the
over-inflated costs of medical care. But is it?
A review of the numbers published in the major
capitalist newspapers in Detroit, the News and Free Press,
fail to account for more than half of the listed debt at the
DMC. In addition, the amount that the DMC has budgeted for
covering costs from the uninsured and Medicaid patients is
less than one-third of what is owed.
So why are poor people and the uninsured being
targeted? Could it be a diversion?
There may be an answer to that question in the
conditions Granholm, Ficano and Kilpatrick have placed on the
plan to save DMC: work with a publicly-appointed "oversight
committee;" undergo a new, independent audit; restructure
their governing board; and earmark any emergency public funds
for Receiving and Hutzel hospitals.
If we were to base our assumptions about the
source of the problems at the DMC based on these four
recommendations, then we're left with no question that the
problem starts at the top -- with the board and the financial
accounting.
Looking at the problems in the DMC today, you
almost get a sense that the governing board was taking tips
from Enron and MCI WorldCom. The main problem now, though, is
that the proposals by state and local officials are allowing
the top brass at the DMC to build higher walls of protection
from prying eyes.
The proposal put forward by DMC CEO, Dr.
Arthur Porter, to create a two-tier board, with only select
members being able to review the budget, is a step toward
making independent auditing of the system difficult, and could
even be seen as a move that favors privatization of the
system.
We propose a different approach.
The DMC should belong to the people, and
should not be run on a for-profit basis. We support making the
DMC publicly owned and democratically controlled, with unit
and hospital committees coordinating and making the decisions
of how the hospital should be run.
Further, we are in favor of "cutting the fat"
where is really exists -- at the top. We support removing the
unaccountable governing board with a coordinating committee
elected from unit and hospital committees, accountable to them
and the City Council, with compensation no higher than that of
the average working person at the DMC.
Finally, anyone who is a resident of Detroit,
regardless of income, should be guaranteed free and quality
medical care through the creation of a municipal health
service, run by an elected council and responsible for
coordinating with city agencies to acquire funds and improve
services.
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