Cross posted at Lutton Square
-a gross clinic indeed 
So a highly regarding teaching institution is forced to contemplate the sale of a seminal piece of its own history in order to fund its mission of medical education and health care. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital cannot educate the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals of the 21st century without an influx of money to build out its facilities. So an historical piece of artwork – Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece The Gross Clinic, irrevocably identified with Philadelphia and the University where it was painted – has been optioned to the National Gallery and an Arkansas museum funded by Wal-Mart heirs. The sale will fetch $68 million if it goes through, although there is a 45 day window to allow the Philadelphia fine arts community to attempt to match the offer.
One party to the purchase is the heiress of an American empire, an empire which continues to benefit from low wages here at home, cheap labor in far off contries, union busting tactics, state funded medical benefits for workers, tax advantages on both corporate and personal levels, etc, etc. As corporate empires replace smaller, family-run ‘main street’-type businesses and regional companies, the private wealth those latter business would have created and kept in the area is concentrated into a much smaller subset of owners.
Tax policy that benefits American empires while draining public treasuries across the country creates this horrendous situation. States are forced to spend tax payer money on primary care medical benefits for workers, and therefore don’t have money to fund the education and training of the next generation of American medical professionals. Instead billions of dollars are offloaded into private hands, hands which then contemplate trading some of that money in exchange for precious possessions. American history is sold into private hands to finance the systems which care for the entire population–systems which rightfully should be financed by our governments for the benefit of all Americans.
It is a moral failure that the future of American medicine is subservient to the needs of American heirs and heiresses.
