Dr. Steven Safyer, CEO of Montefiore (The Largest Medical Care Complex in the Bronx) Has a Message on Health Care

And He Has the Credentials to Back It Up

The New York Times has a very adoring profile of Dr. Steven Safyer who is head of Montefiore in the New York City borough of the Bronx.  Who is Dr. Safyer and what is Montefiore?

Dr. Safyer - Gosh He Doesn't Look Like a Radical, The Kind That Thinks Everyone is
Entitled to Decent, Affordable Health Care

Dr. Safyer, 63, took the helm of Montefiore in 2008 after three decades at the hospital, starting as an intern and resident who later spent years caring for inmates at Rikers Island. Today, he oversees four hospitals and 125 health clinics across the Bronx and lower Westchester County with a staff of 18,332 — making it the borough’s largest employer — providing services from primary care to fertility treatments and outpatient cardiac procedures.

The philosophy that drives Dr. Safyer and the Montefiore Medical complex is not to make the most money of all (although Dr. Safyer does quite well, thank you) but to integrate health care and the community. 

But here is the concept that is completely opposite people like Mitt Romney, and  various Republicans who would deprive low income people of medical care by refusing to participate in the expansion of Medicaid.

In Montefiore’s version of a war-room session last fall, Dr. Safyer, in a gray pinstripe suit, told 100 employees, many in white coats and surgical scrubs, that the hospital provided comprehensive medical care to about one-third of Bronx residents, and emergency or non-routine care to another one-third — all in one of the poorest, and most health-challenged, urban communities in the nation.

“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” Dr. Safyer said firmly.

Dr. Safyer exhorted the employees to work together to find innovations as the hospital sought to expand to serve more people while lowering its costs.

“There’s no private equity,” and there are no private investors there, he said. “We need to provide for the future and we need to have a positive bottom line.”

And in case anyone missed it in the section above, here is the critical concept again.

“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” Dr. Safyer said firmly.

Well, that is true, but Conservatives who hold legislative office think it only applies to them, that only they have a right to top-of-the-line government provided health care, which they do.  Their message to everyone else, if you want health care you shouldn’t have chosen to be poor, old, sick, or disabled.