Plainfield: 'Buy Muhlenberg' Coalition protests Obama's consideration of Corzine

One of many signs on Watchung Avenue in Plainfield
protesting the Muhlenberg closure.

Members of the 'Buy Muhlenberg' Coalition have addressed an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team regarding the consideration of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine as a potential Treasury Secretary. Here is the letter in its entirety --

An Open Letter to the Obama Transition Team: Vetting Jon Corzine

We speak for thousands of people in the twelve municipalities covering parts of three counties served by Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, located in Plainfield, New Jersey: Jon Corzine is unqualified to serve in any key financial position in the Obama administration. He has demonstrated time and again a Wall Street attitude that ignores the needs of Main Street. Our experience of his values and ways of operating relates to the way he closed a vital regional medical center with nothing to replace it.

Here is roughly how it went from our perspective:

He appointed a commission on the “rationalization of healthcare” in New Jersey—their job was to develop criteria for determining which hospitals should remain open and which should be closed, since there has been a healthcare financial crisis in our state for years which somewhat mirrors the rest of the nation

Claiming he was using these criteria, Gov. Corzine has overseen the closing of eleven hospitals across the state; in some instances there may have been an overlap of services, but in others there were not. Nine are in urban areas.

Instead of following the recommendations of his commission, which stated that financially troubled but essential hospitals should be kept open, the Governor simply let the free market determine the fate of hospitals that larger hospital systems wanted to discharge.

In January 2008, he appointed Heather Howard, a lawyer, to be Commissioner of Health and Human Services (formerly those in this office were health care professionals). Ms Howard followed the free market principles to a “T” in stating that Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, located in an urban center, should be allowed to go away, so that its sister facility in the Solaris Health System, JFK Hospital in Edison (a wealthier suburban community) could flourish.

To us this is a callous Wall Street mentality emblematic of the administration now vacating the White House. This attitude seems very inconsistent with that of President-Elect Obama.

Another, far murkier angle has been Corzine’s backroom political maneuvering that has presented the public with an opaque face. Whenever we community leaders approached elected officials, all Democrats, from state assembly and senate to U.S. Representatives and Senators, we were met with complete indifference. (Though most of us probably vote Democratic, we were not displeased that one Democrat aspiring to a House seat was not elected, in part because of her indifference to our pleas to help save Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center.) We cannot prove Jon Corzine’s involvement, but suffice it to say that Sen. Barbara Buono of Middlesex County is the head of the Senate Budget Committee, and her husband, Dr. Martin Gizzi, is a highly paid [administrator] with Solaris who has never liked Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center.

Despite extensive research done by our team of community activists, neither the Governor nor his Health Commissioner looked into our many allegations of misdoings on the part of Solaris, which, it seems pretty clear, systematically dismantled all of MRMC’s money-making components and then claimed that charity care was the reason they needed to close the hospital.

It turns out that Solaris’ motivation has a Corzine/Wall Street connection. The state has created a Health Care Facilities Financing Authority which grants hospital systems CLOSING some of their hospitals access to low cost bonds for capital development and restructuring of debt. One of the primary issuers of these bonds is Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine’s former employer. Thus Solaris was recently granted a $169M bond for just these purposes. Whether the bond can actually be sold in this weak market is another question.

Bottom line: hiring Jon Corzine simply puts Wall Street at the heart of a new administration claiming to be different from the last one.

We will be thrilled to supply details to anyone on the Obama Transition Team willing to listen and safeguard the integrity of the new administration.

Rev. James Colvin, Pastor
United Church of Christ
Member of Buy Muhlenberg Coalition
Plainfield, New Jersey

Those interested in the 'Buy Muhlenberg' Coalition can get more information by calling Rev. Colvin at (908) 755-8658.

-- Dan Damon