Cupertino Mayor: there’s a better way than Measure A to rescue public hospitals
Measure A is “good money after bad,” said Cupertino Mayor Liangfang Chao at a rally last week, citing mismanagement as the problem which a sales tax won’t fix. The coming $3 billion yearly deficit has nothing to do with federal cuts: the hospitals were already “bleeding money.” She urged those gathered to look at El Camino Hospital, which runs at a surplus and isn’t asking for a regressive sales tax to stay afloat.
Our county hospitals are bleeding money. They’ve been losing money every single year. To date, about one billion dollars have already been taken from taxpayers — from you — just to fill the holes they created in the hospital system. To cover those losses, they’ve cut money from public safety, from family, senior, and children’s services, and from housing.
This year’s deficit is $600 million. They project it will grow to $1.5 to $3 billion within the next five to ten years — and that’s before the federal funding cuts kick in.
Now, I say this with deep respect: My dad was a doctor. My mom is a nurse. My childhood dream was to become a nurse. And I grew up in hospitals. I have the utmost respect for doctors, nurses, and emergency workers. But if we keep letting the county leaders run our hospital system into the ground, it’s not just the hospitals that will go bankrupt.
The entire county could go bankrupt.
They claim this tax is “necessary” because the hospitals are losing money. But look at El Camino Hospital — right here in the same county. It’s funded by a 1% property tax and runs a surplus of $130 million a year.
It can be done! There is a way to run hospitals efficiently!
Read the whole speech here.
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