Cleveland Clinic To Cut 3,000 Jobs

[Bill Call]

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/inde ... 30_mi.html


The Cleveland Clinic business model is to use its tax free status to force the closure of independent doctors offices. This results in:

a loss of jobs
empty office buildings
lower property tax payments
and
higher medical bills


Their current policy is to move most of its Cuyahoga County offices to Lake, Lorain and Medina counties. For some reason our County "leadership" is in full agreement with this policy.

If our institutions are leaving town why should the people stay behind?

[Matthew Lee]

Can we at least be accurate on the subject? Whether I agree or disagree with what the clinic is doing they are NOT cutting 3,000 jobs. They WILL offer early retirement to 3,000 employees and then, depending on how many accept, they may do other things.

A discussion on whether this is good or bad is certainly appropriate, but let's at least be accurate about what is going on when an article is written.

[Bill Call]

Can we at least be accurate on the subject? Whether I agree or disagree with what the clinic is doing they are NOT cutting 3,000 jobs. They WILL offer early retirement to 3,000 employees and then, depending on how many accept, they may do other things.

A discussion on whether this is good or bad is certainly appropriate, but let's at least be accurate about what is going on when an article is written.

If the Clinic employees 41,000 people and "retires" 3,000 people they will then employ 38,000 people. That's a cut in the number of people employed and is a direct result of their business model.

[Matthew Lee]

I guess we can agree to disagree on the semantics.

They have not said they are going from 41,000 to 38,000 employees.

They have said they are offering early retirement to 3,000 and, depending on how many accept, they will then look to save money elsewhere which might include job cutting.

[Bill Call]

I guess we can agree to disagree on the semantics.

They have not said they are going from 41,000 to 38,000 employees.

They have said they are offering early retirement to 3,000 and, depending on how many accept, they will then look to save money elsewhere which might include job cutting.

I blamed the Clinic's business model for the job losses but the Clinic is blaming Obamacare:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09 ... et-due-to/

The money quote:

"Clinic is being forced to cut back to prepare for increased costs and decreased revenue under the health care reform law. "

There are a lot of empty office buildings around town that use to house local doctors and medical specialists. The empty office building means lower property tax revenue, lower property values, lower income tax revenue and lower economic activity in the surrounding neighborhoods. That is a direct result of Clinic policy.

Of course I guess I have a personal grievance against the Clinic. Every specialist and doctor that I've had over the last few years has been moved by the Clinic to their facilities further West. First to Westlake and then to Lorain County. Why should the 55,000 people of Lakewood have to go to Lorain County to see a doctor?

If the Clinic is investing billions to move jobs and revenue out of Cuyahoga County why is the political leadership silent?

One reason is that they are still under the impression that the Clinic is a job machine. It isn't.

[Bill Call]

I guess we can agree to disagree on the semantics.

They have not said they are going from 41,000 to 38,000 employees.

They have said they are offering early retirement to 3,000 and, depending on how many accept, they will then look to save money elsewhere which might include job cutting.

I blamed the Clinic's business model for the job losses but the Clinic is blaming Obamacare:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09 ... et-due-to/

The money quote:

"Clinic is being forced to cut back to prepare for increased costs and decreased revenue under the health care reform law. "

There are a lot of empty office buildings around town that use to house local doctors and medical specialists. The empty office building means lower property tax revenue, lower property values, lower income tax revenue and lower economic activity in the surrounding neighborhoods. That is a direct result of Clinic policy.

Of course I guess I have a personal grievance against the Clinic. Every specialist and doctor that I've had over the last few years has been moved by the Clinic to their facilities further West. First to Westlake and then to Lorain County. Why should the 55,000 people of Lakewood have to go to Lorain County to see a doctor?

If the Clinic is investing billions to move jobs and revenue out of Cuyahoga County why is the political leadership silent?

One reason is that they are still under the impression that the Clinic is a job machine. It isn't.

[ryan costa]

Is this Clinic cutting jobs regardless of the Affordable Care Act?
Exactly what expenses are going up? Which revenues are going down?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was truly a bi-partisan achievement.
It was written by lawyers hired by the lobbyists. Chris Hedges explains...it is a subsidy to private insurance companies that forces consumers to by inferior products.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/oba ... _20100712/

Republicans in Congress are making a ploy to "Defund" this particular legislation and its programming. I guess that means we'll only be stuck with parts of it that mandate people by health insurance. which parts of it will be null and void? This is a weasel-ish ploy. if they had honest bones in their bodies, they would vote to simply repeal the entire Act. This is a useless gesture to wind up the rubes.
There is hope for recovery of Liberterians.
http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=09202013

Congress is too hopelessly dysfunctional to create any legislation that matters.
Most of them from the South are functionally illiterate.
That is okay. We live in an age of technology. We are full of Technology.
So...they may as well just copy-and-paste whatever Switzerland or Australia or Canada has on the books.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/03/09/r ... -about-it/

At this point, it would take Congress four months to come up with a bill to agree on what color to paint the porch. the title decision itself would occupy most of the publics attention. Once the bill was passed, it would be 500 pages of legal jargon only a team of Harvard Lawyers could decipher.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bill

This is really much ado about nothing in this day and age. These are employee buy-outs on
early retirement. Honestly, and this is a problem. Many are taking the "offered layoff" and
the package and many are taking the package and staying on part time.

I would think this is your dream come true. Cut costs, as older workers are generally higher
earners in corporate climates than younger new hires. I have watched first hand the age
of management at the clinic on the local levels go from people my age or older to 20
somethings eager to work with new technology.

I am sure at the end of the day, it will make money profits for the clinic, and...

An interesting side note on Obamacare since it was brought up here. I was talking with a
geneticists over coffee a month ago and he was going into detail on how the human
genome has been broken, but they have found out that it is the binding proteins that are
the triggers for the genes, and that there are millions of combination of proteins to trigger
any genetic aliment. But, they are coming to get a grip on that, and finding amazing
things. His specialty was they can no address the needs of a baby in the womb, and
correct forever his vision through food and proteins introduced. That with proper testing
they can eliminate any headache that is not caused by stress or tumors, forever!

And drum roll please...

Many of these "cures" not treatments are being rushed to market, because with Obmacare
there is no benefit in treating, only curing. So he expects the next ten years to be in
medicine like the age of vaccines and penicillin was. (The Doctor is an R and remains an R
for reasons other than Obamacare which he thought was a good start on healthcare)

FWIW

.

[c. dawson]

Hmmm, I keep finding articles that suggest that blaming Obamacare for these "cuts" at the Clinic aren't quite accurate ...

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf ... me_fo.html

And my favorite ...

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/25 ... d-o/196066

It's interesting that Bill knows exactly what's going on behind closed doors at the Clinic ... do you eavesdrop on Toby Cosgrove's meetings? I'm always amazed you have the scoop when no one else in Cleveland or the world has it. You must listen to a very special frequency.

[Bill Call]

It's interesting that Bill knows exactly what's going on behind closed doors at the Clinic ... do you eavesdrop on Toby Cosgrove's meetings? I'm always amazed you have the scoop when no one else in Cleveland or the world has it. You must listen to a very special frequency.

I listen to what is said
see what I look at
and jump to conclusions

Like: A couple of years ago a Clinic employee mentioned what he called the "String of Pearls Strategy". The general idea was that the Clinic would build hospitals and treatment facilities just inside and outside of Cuyahoga County and close its facilities in the inner ring.

It doesn't take a great leap to see that such a policy means the death of Lakewood Hospital. I would name the policy the "Pearl Noose" strategy except that people would accuse me of rhetorical excess so I won't say it.