Topic: Political bias or balance at The Berkshire Eagle?
Is The Berkshire Eagle politically biased or politically balanced in its editorial pages and news coverage?
If it is biased, what type of bias does it exhibit, how much of one, and does that bias infect news coverage as well as editorials?
What changes would you make at The Eagle in order to make it a better, more insightful newspaper?
Your Feedback:
If it is biased, what type of bias does it exhibit, how much of one, and does that bias infect news coverage as well as editorials?
What changes would you make at The Eagle in order to make it a better, more insightful newspaper?
Your Feedback:
posted by G.M.Heller at Sunday, April 03, 2005
7 Comments:
Dear Glenn Drohan, The North Adams Transcript, News Media, Politicians, & the People:
Re: "More sensible than windmills" (The North Adams Online - Editorial, 4/23/2007): The Transcript states: Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray message focused on broadband Internet service during his visit to North Adams, but he stopped short of promising the estimated $20 million necessary to accomplish getting broadband Internet service to all rural communities in Western Massachusetts, but that he and Governor Deval Patrick are drafting a bond bill to implement this needed project.
What bothers me about The Transcript's logic is that Governor Deval Patrick's FY2008 state budget proposal is what is most pertinent to Western Massachusetts, not the complement of broadband Internet service that will primarily benefit the business community instead of the people. State Representative Daniel E. Bosley (a.k.a. Bureaucrat Bosley) and his fellow Legislative hacks are once again screwing the cities and towns out of many millions of state dollars for any and all public services by rejecting Governor Deval Patrick's proposal to find real funding sources and not one time financing gimmicks to close the estimated $1 Billion state budget deficit.
Don't you get it, Glenn Drohan & The Transcript: WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS NEEDS STATE AID TO PROVIDE THE OPTIMAL LEVEL OF PUBLIC SERVICES TO THE PEOPLE. Bureacrat Bosley, et al, have been dramatically cutting state aid to cities and towns (since the FY2002 state budget) while turning around and giving the money to SPECIAL INTERESTS! Bureaucrat Bosley has even come out against Governor Patrick's proposal to cut special interest tax loopholes to big businesses, corporations, and the like.
HERE IS HOW "THE SYSTEM" Works & here is how bureaucrats like Bosley SCAMS "the system":
(a) The Federal Government provides each state government with many BILLIONS of DOLLARS for the states to ADMINISTER and complement state funding to. From EDUCATION, to ROADS & BRIDGES, to HEALTHCARE, to ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, to HOUSING, to PUBLIC SAFETY, and on and on.
(b) The germane STATE GOVERNMENT then receives the federal dollars, which make up about 2/3 of that state's budget, and comes up with about 1/3 of state revenues to complement the federal grants for public services. In receiving this federal money, the states must be in compliance with a myriad of federal overly bureaucratic rules, regulations and procedures.
(c) The state's obligation is to take a small piece of the federal money and use it for administrative costs. While the federal government grants the money for public services, the state must administer the federal money to provide those services. Some of the federal money goes to state programs, and some of the federal money goes to local programs.
NOTE: So when the state is providing state aid to cities and towns, it has no choice in the matter. If the state wants the BILLIONS of Federal Dollars, the state is mandated to give some of the money to the municipalities for federally funded, state administered, locally controlled public services.
(d) Bureaucrats like Bosley then SCAM "the system" by representing political power and special interests, not the people! State governments take the BILLIONS in Federal Funding and only meet the minimal regulatory requirements of providing public services to the state, and especially the cities and towns. Bureaucrat Bosley collects MANY THOUSANDS of SPECIAL INTEREST DOLLARS every single year from wealthy corporations, big businesses, lobbyist firms, and the like, to make tax loopholes for these entities who fill his campaign coffers with lots of blood money. In order for Bureaucrat Bosley to be in the position of receiving special interest dollars, he has to support and give loyalty to top-down political leaders like TOM FINNERAN & SAL DiMASI, et al. They keep Bureaucrat Bosley in powerful committee seats so he can wheel and deal.
(e) The end result is "the system" provides funding for public services, but the politicians who run the system SCAM "the system" by taking that funding and giving it away to SPECIAL INTERESTS!
CASE IN POINT: Governor Deval Patrick proposed real state funding sources to pass the FY2008 Massachusetts State Budget. Bureaucrat Bosley, et al, came out against those real funding sources, especially the governor's proposal to take away hundreds of millions of dollars in special interest tax breaks to already wealthy corporations, and, on top of that, Bureaucrat Bosley, et al, proposed deep funding cuts into a myriad of state and local programs that provide quality public services to the people!
In closing, I dissent against the focus of The North Adams Transcript and the easy treatment of Bureaucrat Bosley's reprehensible and terrible public policy record of screwing the people, cities and towns he represents in order for him to represent the special interests and get away with SCAMMING "the system." Unlike Bureaucrat Bosley, I do NOT believe that one man's leftovers is another man's dinner! I believe in equity, and the focus of The Transcript should be to hold BUREAUCRAT BOSLEY, et al, into strong account for their inequitable proposal for the FY2008 Massachusetts state budget that only and once again benefits the special interests, not the people!
I WILL ALWAYS SPEAK MY GOOD CONSCIENCE AS LONG AS I LIVE!
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
Dear Berkshire Eagle, Bill Everhart:
Re: "Crunching numbers in Pittsfield" (A Berkshire Eagle Editorial, 5/30/2007): I strongly write my dissent against the following statement by the Editors of the Eagle: "Under state control, incidents like the removal of Berkshire retirement board member Peter Arlos at the direction of the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission after he voted in favor of his own pay raise would be far less likely to occur."
THE BACK STORY
My dad was a Berkshire County Commissioner who served with Peter Arlos, who was the Berkshire County Treasurer. Both men were victims of the Kafka-esque Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. During the Spring of 1998, a complaint was filed against my dad for speaking out on the issue of the state's obligation to pay its fair share of Court House rent to the then Berkshire County Government. I read the all of the State Ethics documents that were faxed to my dad and at issue was one news article published in the North Adams Transcript newspaper in the Fall of 1997 quoting my dad on the public issue of Court House rent. The State Ethics Commission stated that while they granted my dad permission to run for elected office, he had restricted constraints on his speech regarding the state since he worked for the state government. Because the State Trial Court Chief Justice was the Administrative Officer for the State's Courthouse System, including rent payments to the County Governments, and my dad worked under his authority for the state government, my dad's speech was alleged to have been insuboridinate. Fortunately for my dad and my family, (now retired) Judge Barbalunga advocated for my dad's constitutionally protected freedom of speech and ruled that my dad could keep his long-standing job with the state. Judge Barbalunga stood up to some powerful, corrupted politicians and interests to help my dad and my family from being ruined.
Moreover, during the same time period, during the Spring of 1998, then State Senator Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr. set up secret plans with the Pittsfield Police Department to have me arrested under the false pretenses that I was threatening him for opposing my dad's political positions. While, in fact, it was Luciforo who was the one to have previously threatened me twice in two separate incidences, Luciforo wanted to not only see my dad lose his job and financial security, but also for my dad to see his son (me) rot behind the bars of the Berkshire County Jail at the hands of Luciforo's "Good Old Boy Network" political buddy Carmen C. Massimiano, Jr., the long-standing Berkshire County Sheriff. As an aside, upon moving from the beautiful Berkshires to Southern New Hampshire, Carmen Massimiano warned me to not tell on Luciforo and himself for what they had planned to do to me during the Pittsfield Political Machine's persecution of my dad and his family for opposing the special interest demands of the Good Old Boy Network.
In retaliation for my true stories about the political persecution of Luciforo and Massimiano, Denis E. Guyer made it his personal mission in life to destroy my reputation by spreading vicious, slanderous and hurtful rumors against me to the good people of the Pittsfield area while leaving out the rest of the story. Denis E. Guyer is the opposite of my dad, who is a good man and used his political power to help people instead of slander them. Denis E. Guyer is a GOLDDIGGER because he married Allison Crane of Crane & Company only for her money, not for love. Denis E. Guyer is now part of the Pittsfield Political Machine ran by the Good Old Boys' Network, and he will be guaranteed money from the Cranes and power from the special interests. But like Luciforo and Massimiano, Guyer will always have the strongest of my political opposition -- and I will always speak my good conscience as long as I live!
While Peter Arlos was once my friend, I no longer consider him to be so after he said to me that he opposed President Bush II's ordering me a hearing before the VA system to be ruled eligible for Veterans Disability Benefits after I disobeyed illegal orders in the U.S. Army in order to protect human lives. Arlos only saw me benefiting from my honorable military service, not the sacrifices I made to protect the sanctity of human lives. I am a good man, and when people see me as otherwise then I no longer consider them my friend -- and that goes for Peter Arlos too.
THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO PETER G. ARLOS!
While living in Southern New Hampshire, I have followed the parallel State Ethics charges filed against my dad's former colleague, Peter Arlos. Like my dad, Arlos defied the oligarchy and spoke out against the state's foul treatment of county governments during the 1990s. Like me, Arlos believed in freedom and free speech, and like both my dad and I, the special interest state and local politicians got even with Arlos through political persecution. The error Arlos made by voting for his own pay raise could have and should have been handled in a private way, but it was the point of the top-down state and local governments to publicly punish him via news articles in the Eagle.
I find my experience with Berkshire County politics to be very interesting because I graduated cum laude with a Bachelors Arts degree in political science and peace studies during this same time period. I then went onto study public administration at U Mass Amherst, receiving a Master's Degree in May of 1999. Graduating with honors and then successfully receiving my graduate degree was in sharp contrast to the political reality one faces when participating and dealing with one's own government. In theory, democratic institutions are there to protect the common citizen from political persecutions. But in reality, these institutions are there to persecute the common citizen to profit the special interests of the career politicians or the oligarchy.
I have had it with The Berkshire Eagle's myopic Editorials that make some politicians look good when they are corrupted, while others are made to look bad and treated like the scapegoats of the same system that has politically persecuted them. (I also think of all of the great work Rinaldo Del Gallo III has done for Pittsfield, and even the Orwellian Alan Chartock joined the Eagle in criticizing him.)
Just look at the terrible picture Luciforo, Massimiano and Guyer have painted of me. Here I am, a common citizen who has done nothing other than good deeds in my life -- even recognized by the sitting president for protecting human lives -- BUT IN PITTSFIELD I AM STILL NOTHING MORE THAN TARGET PRACTICE FOR THE OLIGARCHY's POLITICAL PERSECUTIONS. Somethings wrong with this picture, Berkshire Eagle Editors. The truth hurts, but it will set you free, too. Stop scapegoating people like Peter Arlos and start addressing the real and many problems facing both Pittsfield and the entire Berkshire region.
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
RE: The Boston Globe's MYOPIC political cartoon blaming only China for Africa's latest Genocide
Dear Boston Globe Editors:
I have done much research on HUMAN RIGHTS and its opposite: Genocide. I have studied genocides and how and why they occur. Your political cartoon blaming China for Africa's latest genocide in the Darfur province of Sudan, Africa is MYOPIC because it is superficial and lacks historical context. The real root causes of violence in Africa was European Colonialism, which was the cause of World War I, which then gave rise to Adolf Hitler and his racist and violent Nazi Party, which committed genocide against over 6 million innocent Jewish people and millions of others. European Colonialism of Africa brought cultural divisions to the tribal but diverse continent of Africa. The cultural, social and economic exploitation of Africa's tribal but diverse peoples are most to blame for the genocides of Rwanda and Burundi in the mid-1990s, Darfur in the middle of our current decade, among other crimes against humanity. China is a political state with no recognition of HUMAN RIGHTS and therefore chooses to profit off of Africa's divided political theater, including the continuation of the genocide in Darfur. China is wrong for supporting the regime of Omar Al-Bashir, but it is MYOPIC to not point the finger at the evils borne out of European Colonialsim, which is most to blame for Africa's myriad of social problems. Why is the global economy so inequitable anyway? With investments and compassion, the World is able to end human suffering. Let us begin NOW!
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
Future President of the United States of America!
NOTE: The Boston Globe rejects all of my emails as of 6/11/2007. I do not know why this is so. If it is for political differences, then the Globe has shown themselves to be a closed-minded rag. If it is for legal or technical reasons, then I hope to find out the Globe's reasoning or error.
-Jonathan A. Melle
6/12/2007
Dear Berkshire Eagle Editors:
Despite your continued blackout of my letters, I continue to write about my thoughts on political operators, events, and ideas. Your editorial most recent editorial on the matter fails to explain the central focus of why State Government "Leaders" from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to State Treasurer Tim Cahill to State Representative Dan Bosley are dragging their collective feet on this behaviorally degenerative gambling project.
To explain an issue, one needs to be clear on what the issue is. In order for an explanation of an issue to be understood, one needs to illustrate how the issue applies to the real World -- or from theory to practice. Once an issue is explained and illustrated, the audience is expected to comprehend the matter which needs either consent or rejection. In such cases, it is a good idea to provide clear choices to the decision making audience. Upon a decision, it is a good idea to provide input on the implementation of the project so that its intent remains true to its original calling. Upon administration of the project, it is good to have oversight, checks and balances, and evaluative measures to ensure safety, health, sound socioeconomic welfare outcomes, and socioeconomic justice, ethics and morality.
To explain the issue of gambling, it is a process where people place a portion of the income at a high level of risk for a high level or reward, but usually lose a percentage of their income to the vendor. To illustrate, a working poor gambler will be induced to play the lottery to assist himself in paying his bills. There is a clear incentive for a poor person to play the lottery because he has more liabilities (financial obligations: debts) than income, savings, and the like to pay for his debts. Playing the lottery is a short-term psychological way out of one's anxieties for a poor person, but a long-term form of regressive taxation for the state or regressive revenue stream for a private gambling enterprise. Regressive taxes and fees don't have the same negative impacts on people who are not poor. To comprehend the issue, gambling is a business ran by both the state and private sector that negatively impacts the poor at the collective financial gain of the rich. The clear choices are either end all forms of gambling enterprises or allow all forms of gambling enterprises. The reason for the clear choice is that state lotteries have the same negative socioeconomic impacts on the poor as do private casinos! In the implentation of the issue, the decision makers need to receive input from the people most impacted by the project. If a state lottery takes money away from a casino and vice versa, it is a good idea to allow poor gamblers to have a say on which way they are going to complement the artificially low taxes on rich taxpayers or wealthy corporate businesses. If gambling stands as a regressive revenue source for the state and/or businesses, it is a good idea for the system to have oversight, checks and balances, and the like, so that the administration of :taxing the poor for the collective benefit of the rich" ensures its yearly profit goals so that rich people will continue to be able to pay artificially low personal and business tax rates.
THE ONLY REASON WHY THE COMMONWEALTH DOES NOT FULLY SUPPORT CASINO GAMBLING IS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT IT TO CUT INTO ITS MONOPOLY CONTROLLED YEARLY STATE LOTTERY REVENUES. THE STATE "LEADERS" -- including Dan "Bureaucrat" Bosley -- WANTS TO MAXIMIZE ITS REGRESSIVE TAXATION REVENUES BECAUSE IT KEEPS PROGRESSIVE TAXATION REVENUES ARTIFICIALLY LOW. BY KEEPING TAXES ARTIFICALLY LOW FOR RICH PEOPLE AND WEALTH CORPORATE BUSINESSES, THE STATE POLITICIANS RECEIVE HIGHER CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, AND HIGH NUMBERS OF VOTES FROM THE LARGEST DEMOGRAPHIC THAT INFLUENCES THE DEMOCRATIC ELECTORAL PROECESS: THE RICH / THE CORPORATE ELITE.
If private casinos guaranteed the kind of money the state lottery guarantees for the state's fiscal coffers, then they would all be in full support of casino gambling. The state Pols are NOT advocates for the poor on this issue!
In Truth,
Jonathan A. Melle
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No to state casinos
A Berkshire Eagle Editorial
Monday, July 30, 2007
The town of Middleborough, lured by the promise of fool's gold, voted Saturday at a town meeting to sign an agreement with the Wampanoag Indians that will bring the state's first casino to the small southeastern Massachusetts community. Where there is one casino, there assuredly will be a second, along with slot machines at the state's racetracks. That is, of course, unless Governor Patrick and the Legislature nip the state's growing gambling fever in the bud.
The tribe and its developers are promising the town $7 million a year and a 4 percent lodging assessment from a planned hotel, which is chump change compared to what the casino is likely to rake in. In exchange, the town will get traffic congestion, crime and plenty of low-paying jobs. Not a good deal, unless the state saves the town from itself.
The Connecticut towns of Ledyard and Montville, homes to the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos respectively, would have provided an object lesson for Middleborough voters had they looked to the south. A study this month by The Boston Globe found that calls reporting crimes and arrests for drunken driving have skyrocketed in both towns over the past six years. Rural roads not built for high volumes of traffic are clogged. The quality of life residents were accustomed to has declined. The casinos have created jobs, though jobs as dealers and in the various service industries required by casinos do not pay well. While Middleborough will get a monthly check for its trouble, along with improvements to some roads, neighboring towns like Plympton and Waterville located on highways that will carry gamblers back and forth from Boston will get traffic and nothing else.
While it may be tempting to let Middleborough live with its decision, it would be unwise. Other branches of the Wampanoags seek casino sites and loose federal regulations enable them to extend their tribal land to property they have purchased, as is the case in Middleborough. Some on Beacon Hill think the state should get into the casino business itself and cut out the tribes and their backers. The Berkshires may be a long shot as a casino location but there is tourist money here, and if one casino becomes reality, the Berkshires may be-come attractive to others looking to follow suit.
The tribal casinos are the product of a terrible federal law of 1988 enabling tribes to conduct the same kind of gambling as is allowed in a state. This opened the door, and the law's stipulation that states could negotiate with tribes about permitting forms of gambling that had been prohibited led to the opening of slot machines in the Connecticut casinos, and the millions began rolling in daily. With the money comes political corruption, as both the Clinton and Bush administrations have been involved in shenanigans involving the recognition of border-line tribes backed by deep-pocketed casino developers and their lobbyists. (The Jack Abramoff scandal was largely about cynical efforts to play one tribe off against another.)
Middleborough and the Wampanoags must still negotiate a contract with the governor, and the law is so vague there are differences of opinion as to whether the state must negotiate or can simply reject the casino. It is generally agreed that the Legislature must approve whatever contract is agreed upon. Disappointingly, Governor Patrick appears receptive to casinos, but the House is thought to be less so, and members can call upon the expertise of North Adams Democrat Dan Bosley, a casino opponent whose views are supported by his considerable research into the issue.
The state's falling lottery revenues highlight the danger of government dependence on the vice industry, an industry that preys on the poor. A casino — and eventually casinos — would dramatically increase this dependence. Beacon Hill must do what it can so Middleborough's folly will not be the state's.
8/26/2007
Dear Berkshire Eagle, et al:
Similar to the ignorance of recent state government history by the
Boston Globe, you (The Eagle) have ignorantly revised recent state
government history. The reason why BMC (or BHS) got monopoly power
over MRI and like medical devices was that Pittsfield’s delegates to
Beacon Hill’s State House secretly placed a rider onto the
Massachusetts FY2002 “Thanksgiving 2001” State Budget. The 2
Pittsfield delegates were then-Berkshire State Senator Andrea F.
Nuciforo, Jr. (Luciforo) and the Pittsfield State Representative Peter J. Larkin – 2 pro-business, anti-grassroots, machine-Pols, who both have made respective, lucrative careers for themselves in the private sector that relates to State House politics.
Luciforo had even wrote letters to the private group of doctors who
invested $ into the healthcare industry’s radiological business,
giving them false reassurances that they would be able to open a private
practice to treat people with cancer and like illnesses. All the
while, Luciforo knew that he was working with Larkin to ban them from being able to own the necessary medical equipment—MRIs and the like—to operate said facility.
The commonwealth is supposed to pass an annual budget on or prior to July 1st of every year. In 2001, the budget was not passed by the Legislature until mid-November. Luciforo & Larkin secretly snuck in the law screwing the private medical doctors seeking to start their private practice by giving sole rights in Berkshire County ONLY to BHS to own and operate MRIs and the like medical devices. There were no public hearings, no consideration for medical needs and related issues, and no disclosures to the news media or anyone else about the law.
Acting Governor Jane Swift then went onto sign the FY2002
“Thanksgiving 2001” Budget, and the rest is history. I just wish that the Eagle, similar to the Globe, would get their facts straight when recounting recent past events in State Government history.
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Melle
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BMC's big deal
Editorial
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Berkshire Medical Center has won its five-year battle with Berkshire
Radiological Associates, but what matters to Berkshire residents is how they will be affected. The purchase of the radiology clinic by BMC will make for a stronger hospital, which benefits the community, but BMC can become even stronger by addressing the needs that outpatient centers
fill.
The simmering animosity between the administration of Berkshire Health Systems and many of its doctors erupted into view in 2001 when Berkshire Radiological Associates, the city's only group of radiologists, announced plans for a $4.5 million imaging center on North Street in Pittsfield in 2001. After two years of squabbling, and crippled by legislation banning any business other than BMC from
operating an MRI in Berkshire County, the three doctors remaining from the original 11 in the Associates group opened an MRI center in New Lebanon, N.Y., but apparently never succeeded in making the business, with its high overhead, profitable.
At a time when many community hospitals are sinking into a sea of red, Berkshire Medical Center remains profitable. One of the reasons it remains in the black is the determination of BHS administrators to hold
on to its profit-making enterprises, and if it has been aggressive in doing so, the financial health of the hospital is that important to the community. Emergency rooms, for one example, operate at a loss, and if a hospital loses its profitable sections, like radiology, those money-losing operations could turn a good hospital into a poor one, if
not a defunct one.
One way for BHS to protect itself is to take away the arguments for
spin-off outpatient centers. It is understandable that people would
rather go to a quiet, attractive clinic than a bustling hospital for
outpatient treatment, and Berkshire Radiological Associates was designed to serve this need. In 2003, BMC responded by opening a new women's imaging center boasting the attractive qualities of an outpatient center. If the hospital can provide outpatient facilities that are quiet and comfortable and serve patients quickly, it is less likely that doctors will try to break away to their own facilities and less likely that residents will demand those facilities.
We are encouraged by the graciousness both BMC and the Associates demonstrated in announcing the deal, but it is apparent from the article in Saturday's Eagle that the 15 employees of Berkshire
Radiological Associates were caught by surprise by the sale and some fear the hospital will hold a grudge against them. BMC may not be a position to take all of the employees on right away, but we certainly hope the hospital will not hold employment by the Associates group against any qualified job applicant. That would only heighten whatever bad feeling exists.
It is unfortunate that doctors, administrators and patients are so
often at odds with one another in Berkshire County, but this is in
large part because of a cumbersome national health care system that by
definition frustrates all involved parties. That won't change soon, but all involved parties in Berkshire County do need the same thing — a strong, financially sound hospital. This purchase will strengthen BMC, and if BMC can continue to address the needs of patients that outpatient centers are built to serve, the hospital will grow even
stronger.
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Loss of Associates is loss of choice
Letters
Sunday, August 26, 2007
I was saddened to see that Berkshire Radiological Associates will no longer be able to serve our community. The doctors, staff, and technicians were kind, considerate and sensitive to individuals needs.
The parking was convenient, it was a cheerful atmosphere and always
made you feel welcome and well cared for. I guess the old saying"
"nothing good lasts forever" is true in this case.
We should all have the right to choose what we feel is best for our
medical needs. That has been taken away as well. We will miss you
Berkshire Radiological, a job well done!
MARY (MOLLY) RICCHI
Pittsfield
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BHS deal is win, not a mandate
Letters
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The recent deal between Berkshire Health Systems and Berkshire
Radiological Associates highlights the Scylla and Charybdis of 21st
century health care delivery. If we are to transform from the
inefficient, redundant, competitive system we dragged with us from the 20th century to single-payer universal coverage, we need to dismantle the strategies and tactics upon which the old system was based.
On the one hand, duplication of services by doctors hoping to take the cream from the top of the barrel needs to be stopped. BHS recently opposed just such an orthopedic surgery facility in Lenox. Protecting the hospital's profit-making enterprises from opportunistic doctors is indeed in the community's best interest.
But, do we want our future universal single-payer health care system to be a profit-making business? Do we want our local health care system to provide profitable health care services for no other reason but that they are profitable? Is some profitable health care better delivered elsewhere? Does our current system assist those who wish to go elsewhere, if for no other reason than consumer choice, or does it consider those who go elsewhere profit lost?
Sometimes doctors provide services that are profitable and also
extremely beneficial to the patients. Our local oncologists provide such a service that I have had personal experience with and recommend highly. It would be a travesty for BHS to exert the same crushing political clout to grab this share of the pie.
Our future system will depend heavily on local systems delivering
quality care that is needed. These same systems will have to be willing to give up profit-making care when it is appropriate that it should be done elsewhere. For example, in orthopedic surgery, advances in computer assisted technology suggest that within a decade or so, joint replacement surgery should be done only in major centers, such as Boston or New York.
Although it might still be profitable to offer computer assisted joint replacements in smaller hospitals, the outcome quality level is expected not to be as good as that of places where larger numbers of cases are done. A smaller local system must be prepared to assist
consumers to have their surgery done elsewhere, not attempt to set up its own program just because it is profitable.
It is laudable for the Berkshire Health System to protect our most
precious asset by providing care that is profitable. Let us not give
them the wrong mandate.
CHARLES KENNY, M.D.
Stockbridge
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BMC squashes a fine business
Letters
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
We are told that Berkshire Health Systems has acquired Berkshire
Radiological Associates at 610 North Street because, at least in part, the radiology center was draining valuable business from the hospital and weakening its bottom line. Yet, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, Berkshire Medical Center, a "charitable" nonprofit organization, recorded a $24 million profit last year. The imaging center at BMC had shown a steady growth of patients from 151,000 in 2004 to 177,000 in 2006.
So why has Berkshire Radiological Associates posed any real threat to
the bottom line of Berkshire Health Systems? The second question I would ask is why these two imaging centers could not get along? Why not work together, rather than develop the antagonism that I read about from Berkshire Medical Center?
It is sad to see the way it treated the people who originally staffed Berkshire Radiological Associates, the way it used its incredible financial resources and lobbying efforts to apply political pressure to prevent an "open" MRI at the 610 North Street address, and the apparent collusion with Baystate Medical Center to force Health New England to refuse to cover most services at the outpatient facility. This removed a large number of people seeking imaging services from Berkshire Radiological Associates' client base and forced them to go to BMC.
While I have concern about the potential removal of another significant tax-paying entity from the Pittsfield tax base, the far more significant question for me is how all this impacts patient services in our community.
As an occasional client of Berkshire Radiological Associ-ates, I have experienced the ease of parking, the warmth of its waiting room, the incredible friendliness and competence of its staff, and the extremely efficient service. I have not had to compete for services with trauma cases or the seriously ill from the intensive care unit. Perhaps of
equal importance, I have always had an incredibly prompt response to any test results.
In the years of its operation, I have never seen informational pickets or any other kind of pickets outside Berkshire Radiological Associates. Its employees were obviously happy with their work and the treatment
they received from their management. That always translates into more friendly and more efficient employees.
I am somewhat troubled by the obvious need for informational picketing that recently took place in front of BMC where nurses must fight for greater contributions to their pension plans, more adequate staffing, and "respect now." So my third question becomes: Was this really the time to take down an efficient and apparently well run imaging center using monies that might better have been used to reward and upgrade staffing at BMC?
Perhaps if BMC would treat its nursing staff with more respect and
dignity and make them feel truly part of the team effort at BMC, much of the nursing shortage would take care of itself. Berkshire
Radiological Associates seems to have understood that extremely well.
ROBERT H. SKIDMORE
Pittsfield
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BMC buys rival
City Click photo to enlarge
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Berkshire Radiological Associates acquired, ending a lengthy feud.
By Jack Dew
Berkshire Eagle Staff
PITTSFIELD — After five years of contention and competition,
Berkshire Medical Center is buying an outpatient radiology center that had once threatened to drain valuable business from the hospital and weaken its bottom line.
By acquiring Berkshire Radiological Associates, BMC is putting an end to a long-running feud that had angered many in the medical community who said it typified the hospital's sometimes heavy-handed approach to protecting its bottom line.
The deal means the hospital is shuttering its biggest competition in the lucrative imaging field. Neither BMC nor Berkshire Radiological Associates would disclose the final purchase price. The deal is expected to close in the middle of September, and Berkshire Radiological Associates will continue to see patients until Sept. 7.
Despite years of antagonism, both sides sought to put the best face on the deal. BMC spokesman Michael Leary said the purchase was a logical move for the hospital, which has been looking to expand and was contemplating building an outpatient facility on its own. At Berkshire Radiological, Dr. Stuart J. Masters said the two sides had ignored their past and struck a deal that is good for the county's health care system.
It is unclear whether the building will remain a radiology facility.
"How this will fit into the needs of the hospital in the future is
something we are still reviewing," Leary said.
The building will not be empty: Berkshire Nurse Practitioners has a
seven-year lease on office space there, and Robyn Korte, one of the
practice's partners, said they intend to stay. Leary said the hospital will honor that lease "to the extent that we are bound by it," but will also look to have discussions with the nurse practitioners about their
plans.
Negotiations for the radiology purchase began a few months ago. As part of the deal, BMC said it would try to accommodate Berkshire
Radiological's roughly 15 employees; however, Leary said, only two have been offered positions in the hospital, and the others are "certainly
welcome to apply for other positions within the health system for which they are qualified, as would anybody."
An employee of Berkshire Radiological, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was worried his comments would hurt his chances of getting another job, said he believes all 15 will be out of work after the sale is completed.
"I think (the hospital) is holding a grudge," he said. "They don't want to hire us. There were pretty hard feelings when we left, and they just don't want to hire us."
He said the employees only learned about the sale when a voice mail was accidentally sent to the wrong number; when they confronted the doctors two or three weeks ago, the physicians admitted that a deal was in the works. He said the hospital had "crushed" Berkshire Radiological over the years, doing "everything in its power to have us not operate. We are competition, so it's fair game, but that's what happened."
The purchase drew criticism from the BMC chapter of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which is in difficult negotiations for a new contract with the hospital. Chief among the sticking points is a demand from the nurses for a greater contribution to their pension fund.
"(BMC) should be spending its resources on keeping and retaining good nurses," said Ann Marie Adams, a registered nurse at BMC and a member of the MNA committee. "For what reasons do we need to expand? We need to take care of what we have."
While those familiar with deal said it was driven by financial
pressures, Dr. Masters would not address what prompted the sale.
Masters instead spoke about the mission of the facility and the
dedication of the employees.
"We started the facility because we thought that the community would
benefit greatly from having an outpatient imaging center where people who get sick or have a medical problem that needs imaging could be taken care of quickly in gentle, professional surroundings," he said.
With easy parking and an earth-toned lobby with a quietly bubbling
aquarium, the outpatient clinic was designed as an alternative to the bustle of the hospital, where those seeking an MRI or CT scan competed for attention with trauma cases from the emergency room or the seriously ill from the intensive care unit.
BMC opposed the outpatient center even before it was announced. In
December 2001, the hospital's ownership successfully lobbied
Pittsfield's representatives in the Legislature for a special law that made it almost impossible for any business other than a hospital to operate an MRI in Berkshire County.
Eight months later, the 11 doctors of Berkshire Radiological Associates announced plans for a new, $4.5 million clinic on North Street. The hospital said the new office would siphon patients from its own imaging center, which remains one of the most profitable aspects of its business and underwrites money-losing — but essential — functions
like 24-hour emergency care.
Over the next several months, the hospital demoted one of the doctors
from his position as chairman of BMC's radiology department and finally replaced the firm with physicians lured from Michigan.
By the time the outpatient clinic opened in May 2003, only three
doctors remained — Masters, Robert B. Geehr and Jerome M. Auerbach.
Unable to open an MRI at first, the radiologists offered CT scans,
mammography, X-ray, ultra-sound and a range of other services. They
estimated they would see 15,000 patients a year.
But there were early signs of trouble. Health New England, the county's second-largest health insurer, refused to cover most services at the outpatient clinic and eventually pulled out of contract talks with the radiologists. Health New England is run by Baystate Medical Center,
which has a close relationship with BMC.
Berkshire Medical Center, meanwhile, was doing more and more imaging business. According to its numbers, the hospital saw 151,000 radiology patients in 2004; 164,000 in 2005; and 177,000 in 2006.
The doctors eventually found a way around the MRI law by installing a
state-of-the-art, open-style MRI in a strip mall just over the border in New Lebanon, N.Y. By that time, BMC had upgraded its own facilities and had brought in a second MRI to meet patient demand.
It appears the doctors were never able to get the kind of business they needed to support their multimillion dollar overhead. Masters said the three physicians will continue to practice at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, N.Y., and will still run the MRI in New Lebanon.
--
Clinic through the years
City
Saturday, August 18, 2007
December 2001 — Berkshire Medical Center urges Pittsfield's
representatives in the Legislature to pass a law to essentially ban any business other than a hospital from operating an MRI machine in
Berkshire County. The law passes without notice.
July 1, 2002 — Berkshire Radiological Associates, the city's only group of radiologists, announces plans for a $4.5 million outpatient imaging center on North Street. The plan is immediately opposed by BMC.
July 26, 2002 — As the relationship between the doctors and hospital continues to deteriorate, BMC demotes Dr. Robert Geehr from his
position as chairman of the hospital's radiology department.
Nov. 1, 2002 — Berkshire Radiological writes to the attorney general, alleging monopolistic practices by BMC.
Nov. 4, 2002 — BMC announces that it is hiring four radiologists from
Michigan to take over its radiology department, pushing Berkshire Radiological Associates out.
Nov. 14, 2002 — Berkshire Radiological buys 610 North St. for
$535,000.
May 25, 2003 — Berkshire Radiological opens the North Street clinic.
June, 2003 — BMC opens a new women's imaging center designed to make visits easier and more comfortable.
June, 2004 — Berkshire Radiological opens an MRI center in New Lebanon, N.Y., minutes from downtown Pittsfield.
October, 2004 — Health New England says it will no longer allow its
15,000 Berkshire County clients to use Berkshire Radiological's
facilities. The two sides had been in negotiations for 18 months.
August, 2007 — Berkshire Radiological Associates agrees to sell its facility to BMC.
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