Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post has written an article discussing the “debate” over the future of Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Charity Hospital is an institution in New Orleans. It’s no one’s first choice for quality of care, but it’s where you can go if you can’t pay, and they won’t turn you away.
It was damaged by Katrina. It is closed. Patients are being cared for in tents inside the convention center, instead. Now, apparently, Charity Hospital is the subject of a “debate,” presented to us thus:
Some suggest the Charity complex — including the main “Big Charity” hospital, its sister University Hospital, research labs and offices — should be razed. Others demand it be rebuilt. And because any public hospital here — new or old — would be built with federal dollars, every U.S. taxpayer has financial a stake in the fight. (sic)
Let’s talk a little bit about that financial stake. In 2003, taxpayers filed 101,386,201 individual tax returns. The upper-end estimate quoted in the article for completely rebuilding Charity Hospital is $350 million. That comes out to less than $3.50 per taxpayer – and that’s if you ignore all other sources of government revenue (corporate income tax, tariffs, estate taxes, etc.)
What I am concerned about – perhaps this would come as a surprise to Ceci Connolly – what I am concerned about is not how much it might cost me to have Charity Hospital renovated or rebuilt. What I am concerned about is nothing less than the soul of America. What I believe is that every American has a moral stake in making sure that victims of a natural disaster in our country do not suffer and die in tents. I cannot accept that a reporter for the Washington Post thinks we should debate whether 3 and a half dollars from each American taxpayer for a hospital is a good investment. I cannot accept that a reporter for the Washington Post thinks that the only link between the subject of her article and her readers’ lives is the 3 and a half dollars that might come out of their tax bill. Have we Americans now discovered the price we will not pay to keep our soul? $3.50. 3 and a half dollars so that our fellow Americans, who have lost everything, may have medical care.
3 and a half dollars.
………………………..
Those who read the article I’m referencing will see that it’s not really about the 3 and a half dollars. It’s about whether Charity Hospital should be renovated and repaired, or torn down and rebuilt. Ceci Connolly isn’t really trying to tell us that we shouldn’t spend 3 and a half dollars per taxpayer on health care. She isn’t trying to make any kind of policy recommendation. The quote above was just a throwaway comment – an attempt to link the article’s subject matter to readers who don’t live in New Orleans and don’t have any direct interest in whether Charity Hospital is renovated, rebuilt, or just sits to rot.
That’s part of why I find this throwaway comment so disturbing. It seems that a reporter for a respected mainstream newspaper can’t think of any other reason why her readers would care about Charity Hospital, other than it might cost them 3 and a half dollars. Are we so far gone that it’s just accepted as a general rule that we don’t care about each other, except if there’s money involved?
3 and a half dollars.
Are we so far gone? Are we?
at the level of awareness of issues in post-Katrina N.O. Thank you for bringing this up. Truth is, many issues are a symbol, or a metaphor for national issues, so they are worth discussing.
I’ve worked in Charity Hospital, as a case worker for psychiatric patients. It could be a hell hole, or a savior, for the people using her. She was overcrowded, understaffed, underfunded, and the only resource for many working poor. Blanco had cut her funding even more pre-Katrina.
She had problems. Asbestos in her walls, which is the excuse they are using now to not refurbish her and return her to service for indigent health patients, although the asbestos wasn’t much of a problem pre-Katrina. Bogus issues are being used to attack services, housing, whole communities that served African Americans in New Orleans, in a move to downsize and privatize and keep the working poor out of the city.
Monies are being transferred from her system to charity systems elsewhere in the state, such as the Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge. Thousands of Katrina evacuees are settling there.
New Orleans now has just 60,000 population, and the question of the levees may keep many from returning to flood ravaged areas. Smaller, free clinics have sprung up in the city, and this has been helpful.
A visible, noisy movement to save Charity Hospital has not yet developed, though I know of people who are doing things behind the scenes. There needs to be much more effort in this direction.
Regarding the symbolism of Charity Hospital, You know, and I know, it is long past time for universal health care in this country.
I read in the NYT the levees are not fixed. Some that have collapsed have not even been touched!
I think they want the City of New Orleans to flood again, to kill it off, put it out of it’s misery once and for all.
What are the New Orleans papers or La papers saying about all this? What has happened to all the people? I haven’t seen anything that chronicles much about where all the people are. What happened to the forced detention and labor of people at Camp Amtrak?
What about all the refugees in Baton Rouge, how are they getting by?
Amazing is that no one cares that a major American City and parts of the Gulf Coast has been destroyed and all it’s residents are wandering around with no idea what to do and given no structure to utilized in getting themselves back together.
Bush wasnt’ kidding when he said private industry would rebuild New Orleans. The Government wants no part of it. It may not be rebuildalbe but lives of the people ought to be.
We are not so far gone. We have surrendered our communications media to a consumer society which believes the soul of America is not in spirit, but in dollars.
It helps us all to remind those people who forget the reality of life.
While the journalist may be technically correct (if federal funds are used to rebuild/refurbish), this statement does not belong in the article. This writer had a responsibility to present information without bias, as best she can, but failed to uphold her obligation. Instead, she constructs a point of view that seems intended to provoke outrage at yet another federal expenditure. (Why Iraq is not regularly presented in the same fashion is a story for another day.) BTW, nice catch, you obviously made a very close read of the article.
Otherwise the article is good reporting but this comment had no place and I’m horrified by it.
I am recommending your diary because the subject matter is important, and I hope more people read the article. However, I don’t understand why you find the “throwaway” comment disturbing or why you have put “debate” in quotes.
The issue here is whether to spend an estimated 3.5 million on new facilities vs an estimated 2.5 million on renovation.
What you refer to as the author’s “throwaway” comment is a justification for why every American in principle should be a participant in the cost-benefit analysis that optimizes how the money is spent.
The article makes very clear that opting for the more expensive new facilities is a short-term disaster for the residents of New Orleans. Charity will not be operational (in a business sense) until funds are used to transform the current makeshift operation to meet federal standards. As long as Charity is not operational, its employees remain on leave without pay. And if researchers and their grants go elsewhere, the bell tolls. If the decision is made to assign the more expensive $3.50/American to new facilities, the lack of medical care in the city portends disaster in the face of a crisis. You do understand that this option means ‘tent medicine’ for several years in New Orleans?
The Washington Post is a daily object of often unwarranted criticism in the blogosphere.
Yes, I understand what the article is really about and what razing and rebuilding would mean.
The problem I had with this throwaway comment is that it implies that the only reason Americans outside New Orleans should be concerned about what happens to Charity Hospital is that it might cost them $3.50. That’s completely farking insane! Americans should be concerned about Charity Hospital because we have a moral duty to ensure that other Americans, victims of a catastrophic natural disaster, have basic health care. In buildings, not tents.
The Washington Post is my local paper, which is why I read it regularly. It’s sometimes good and sometimes completely farking insane. This particular throwaway comment in this particular article is evidence of how deeply the anti-tax anti-government-services thought has entwined itself in our national consciousness. A reporter can’t find any other way to relate this to her readers than to talk about their tax bill? I mean come on! And the way it’s worded, it practically invites ignorant assholes who picked up their paper this morning to get mad that their tax dollars are being spent unwisely on some hospital for niggers that shouldn’t be living below sea level in the first place.
The article, as a whole, is a good analysis. This throwaway comment, and its implications, are what I find very distressting. I hope this is more clear?
My response is in comment nr 7 here. Unfortunately I was looking at your original diary while responding.
I’ll make a few more comments about your response here.
A reporter can’t find any other way to relate this to her readers than to talk about their tax bill? I mean come on!
No, it invokes our fiduciary responsibility in this conflict, or “fight” as stated by the reporter. Raze vs rebuild?
And the way it’s worded, it practically invites ignorant assholes who picked up their paper this morning to get mad that their tax dollars are being spent unwisely on some hospital for niggers that shouldn’t be living below sea level in the first place.
No. It invites people who picked up their paper this morning to question whether the benefits of new development in one of America’s cities outweighs the risks involved in abandoning existing infrastructure. And frankly, if the medical personnel do cut out by end of year, the decision may be made for us and the people of New Orleans. That’s why this needs to be brought to the foreground now.
I would also mention that if you believe the Washington Post is in some subtle fashion inciting the DC metro area to “get mad that their tax dollars are being spent unwisely on some hospital for niggers”, then you must be new to the area.
Thanks for your reply. I have a sense we are talking past one another a bit. I do agree that the subject of the article – the raze-or-renovate debate – is a very important one. But, that is not really what I am writing about. Not because I don’t think it is important, but because this throwaway comment jumped out at me and – I think – is indicative of a type of thinking that will, ultimately, ensure that little or nothing is done for the people of New Orleans.
No. It invites people who picked up their paper this morning to question whether the benefits of new development in one of America’s cities outweighs the risks involved in abandoning existing infrastructure.
If that is true, and that’s really what the reporter was getting at, then it was worded very poorly. I doubt that any but the more sophisticated readers, and the most knowledgeable about New Orleans, would take it that way.
I would also mention that if you believe the Washington Post is in some subtle fashion inciting the DC metro area to “get mad that their tax dollars are being spent unwisely on some hospital for niggers”, then you must be new to the area.
The paper as a whole? No. But this comment absolutely contains that implication. I have lived in DC or Northern Virginia for 5 out of the last 6 years. If you think there is no racism in Metro DC then you must not have ever canvassed in Herndon. š
But, you are right that this issue I am highlighting is a side issue to the very important and urgent debate over what to do about New Orleans NOW. Maybe one reason I picked up on it, instead of the debate as a whole, is that I feel completely helpless to win that debate. I feel it’s vitally important and yet I just don’t know what to do. I am travelling to the New Orleans area to visit family over Christmas holidays. I intend to bring a camera and tape recorder and go into the city and talk to people and bring out what knowledge I can, and use it to lobby my congressman after the new year. That’s all I can think of. If you have any better suggestions, lay them on.
But this comment absolutely contains that implication
The public can (and perhaps should) play an oversight role on which direction to take: rebuild Charity or scrap and build a new medical center. That’s how I read the comment. There are arguments in the article favoring both positions.
If you think there is no racism in Metro DC then you must not have ever canvassed in Herndon.
There is racism everywhere, but the Post doesn’t go there. In fact, if you are referring to public reaction to the Day Labor Center (I don’t live in Herndon or VA), don’t you agree that the Post took a neutral position in day-to-day reporting? They called out the Minutemen for harassment, so they are not afraid of telling it like it is.
I am travelling to the New Orleans area to visit family over Christmas holidays. I intend to bring a camera and tape recorder and go into the city and talk to people and bring out what knowledge I can, and use it to lobby my congressman after the new year.
I look forward to your diary. Just Wednesday, I received a response from Sen Mikulski on New Orleans. It is very FEMA-centric, i.e., creating an independent commission to investigate the response etc. Little or no information on how the reconstruction is being managed. The reality is that we must hound our representatives, and we can claim correctly that we have a legitimate and fiduciary interest precisely for the reason the WP author points out.
it implies that the only reason Americans outside New Orleans should be concerned about what happens to Charity Hospital is that it might cost them $3.50.
I disagree (obviously).
That the money will be spent is a given. There is a conflict between those who see a shiny whiz-bang new facility estimated at $3.50/taxpayer but will take several years to complete. In the meantime, public health care for current and future residents of NO will suffer because the the emphasis will be on destroying the old and bringing in the new.
On the flip side, $2.50/taxpayer can be spent toward renovation of Charity. This commitment means that Charity and affiliated services can transition toward being fully operational again while retaining pre-Katrina infrastructure. It means health services will be available for those involved in reconstruction. It means that in the face of a public health crisis in the next few years, New Orleans may be equipped to handle it.
As you quoted from the article:
“every U.S. taxpayer has financial a stake in the fight.”
The fight is the emphasis — it is yet another example of the bigger picture on the rebuilding of New Orleans: raze vs rebuild?
It is the business of every American — for, if we, via our representatives, advocate for razing while leaving the people of New Orleans ill-equipped for health care in the interim, we may come to regret this decision in the face of another disaster — and we won’t be able to blame FEMA.
Ceci Connelly spends too much time with her pals at FoxNews. And besides, virtually none of the DC newspeople seems to be able to relate to the general public or to the ethical issues of the day in a meaningful way.
Library’s closing early–have time to reccomend–now getting booted off! Till tomorrow!
After such a rigorous cleansing of the poor, it does not seem likely that developers will wish to build a poor section in the new tourist attraction, why would they want to have an indigent care facility there?