A legislator in New Jersey's 12th District, covering parts of Monmouth and Mercer Counties

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Friday Q & A

As some of you may already know, I'm going to be starting a new interactive function on my blog callled "Q & A Friday." Every other Friday, I will take a number of questions that have been emailed to my office and answer them here in sort of an online interview format. A lot of constituents have the same questions, so this will be a good way to get my anwers or positions out to a large number of people.

If you would like to participate, please e-mail me with your name, mailing address
and question. Unfortunately I won't be able to answer every question online, but everyone who makes an inquiry will get an answer via regular mail.

Next Friday, March 31, I will post Q & A Friday for the first time. I've already gotten some great questions, so I'm looking forward to it. Please feel free to participate!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is a question for you:

The Corzine Administration has now proposed a Hospital Tax, of all things! They are levying a 5.5 percent assessment on all non-Medicare revenue. Then they plan to take half of that money -- $215 Million -- and put it in general revenue – so, that money is gone down the tubes.

If they can get a match from the feds for the other half, then they’ll redistribute the $430 million dollars to acute care hospitals. But here’s the catch. They will redistribute the money disproportionately, so that hospitals in Monmouth and elsewhere in the Shore will take a big huge hit. The tax amounts to a $1,424 per bed tax on our hospitals, with a paltry return.

This coming fiscal year, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank will lose a whopping $6 million dollars! Shore Memorial Hospital will lose almost $3 Million dollars under this scheme. Bayshore Community Hospital would lose $2.7 million dollars. The list goes on and on.

The Asbury Park Press wrote about this boondoggle a few days ago. Why would you ever support a tax on hospitals to supposedly pay hospitals, one that would end up doing do nothing but drive the cost of medical care through the roof by sending all the money to the so-called “winner” hospitals, like Jersey City Medical Center? It’s nothing but a shell game.

6:03 PM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home