Posted on 02/08/2004 6:17:09 AM PST by Reeses
Wealthy donors to the cardiology program at UCSF Medical Center have been rewarded with deluxe amenities and special access to top physicians -- an unusual arrangement some doctors say is inappropriate at a state-sponsored institution.
Donors enjoy quick scheduling of appointments, house calls, a 24-hour cardiology hot line for medical advice and referrals, their own newsletter and invitations to luncheons with clinicians and researchers.
It costs $1,500 per year to gain those favors -- the annual minimum dues to join an organization of UCSF benefactors and VIPs called the "Cardiology Council," started in 1997. But many of the 210 members of the council donate far more than the minimum.
The list includes Northern California leaders in business, society and politics, including the CEOs of Safeway and Gap Inc., San Francisco philanthropist Richard Goldman, discount brokerage founder and namesake Charles Schwab, winemaker Ernest Gallo and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.
Critics of the initiative, including some physicians at UCSF and elsewhere, say the council has created a two-tier system of care -- a medical boutique that reserves special treatment for wealthy patrons. Giving donors access to a special hot line or drop-in appointments, they say, violates a fundamental notion of fair dealing in medicine -- that the sickest patients, not the richest, should be getting the closest attention.
The Cardiology Council enjoys the blessing of top campus administrators. Created by the chief of cardiology, Dr. William Grossman, shortly after he arrived at UCSF, it has brought in millions of dollars at a time when the medical center has seen drastic cuts in public funds and insurance reimbursements.
Grossman said he had no choice but to cater to philanthropists in order to support research and subsidize care for the indigent. But he said that he, too, has heard complaints, prompting him to write a defense of the council in an upcoming issue of "HeartLine," the club's private newsletter.
"I'm very proud of it," said Grossman, a onetime Peace Corps physician in India who also spent 12 years at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and a three-year stint with drugmaker Merck & Co. "It pains me to hear that somebody might think Bill Grossman spends his life running around after rich people and has forgotten why we all came here."
No regular patients are shortchanged by the special treatment offered to VIPs, Grossman said. He emphasized that UCSF, as a state-supported part of the University of California system, prides itself on providing top-quality care to all, regardless of ability to pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
One-tier level of service for all is a "fundamental notion" of medicine? It's a fundamental notion of communism, socialism, and leftist politics.
Envy is the fuel of leftist thought. It does not matter to leftists that a lifestyle poor person receives better medical care today than a king would have 50 years ago, and all for free. What bothers them, turns them green, is that someone, somewhere, has paid more and gotten better service for it. And from a socialized medical organization no less! That's what throws them over the edge.
Absolutely correct. And the money stolen by the lawyer industry each year could pay for health insurance for all uninsured in the US.
Democrats: do as I say, not as I do. Socialist leaders get the same equal treatment as others, just more equal.
The only health care I ever want is what the corrupt Washington politicians get.
Marxism: a scheme devised by the elite to ensure their perpetual domination over the producing middle-class, while concealing the true source.
sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
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