Newsday Continues Its War on NUMC

Biased and Inaccurate Editorial Says Nassau Residents Should Trust Albany Politicians and Bureaucrats with their Healthcare

UNIONDALE, NY – Nassau Health Care Corporation Chairman Matthew Bruderman released the following statement in response to another inaccurate and  misleading editorial from Newsday about the management and finances of NUMC, Long Island’s largest safety-net hospital. In the intellectually dishonest piece in Sunday’s paper, editorial writers patently unqualified to analyze the operations of any health care facility, advocated disbanding the Board of Directors, duly appointed in accordance with State Law, and turning control of the corporation over to Governor Kathy Hochul.

“Members of the Newsday editorial board claim to ‘offer reasoned opinions, based on facts’ but this latest broadside against the NHCC board and leadership is neither. Newsday continues to intentionally ignore key facts while they make bizarre recommendations about Nassau’s largest safety-net health care provider. They routinely ignore the chronic management challenges, debt and deficits that existed at NUMC for many years, prior to the appointment of the current leadership. Those serious issues were not addressed under either Democrat and Republican administrations until recently, when a series of fiscal reforms have made significant positive impact on the hospital’s financial sustainability. Newsday also routinely ignores that the fiscal health of NHCC has been devastated by Albany leaders’ repeated decision to slash more than $160 million in funding for the hospital.

“In their reporting, in what could only be a blatant effort to minimize the significant financial gains made by recent reforms, they included non-cash items (OPEB expenses and NYS actuarial pension adjustments) in their calculations of operating losses, despite being told by NHCC’s chief financial officer that would be misleading and inappropriate. Newsday has also repeatedly misinformed the public about NHCC’s cash balances, wrongly claiming on a several occasions that the corporation would be out of money in 30 days. All of this should make readers question the competency, credibility and independence of the editorial board writers.

“Additionally, their recommendations for the future of NUMC are shockingly ignorant and downright dangerous. The State of New York spends $7,584 of taxpayer money per second or $655 million per day and to do that maintains the highest combined tax burden in America. The State’s poor fiscal management drives out more people than almost any other state in the nation, while hemorrhaging under more than $66 billion in public debt that gets worse every year.

“Nassau residents are smart enough to know that Albany doesn’t have its own house in order and can’t solve any fiscal challenge, let alone run a hospital that provides $1 billion in services annually to at-risk communities. The state’s so-called fiscal watchdog, NIFA, has also been repeatedly wrong and either incompetent or deliberately misleading in its financial projections for NHCC. NIFA even recommended slashing hospital staff by 90 percent during the pandemic. The agenda of certain politicians and NIFA, dutifully amplified by Newsday, has sought for years to intentionally damage the hospital’s reputation and advocate radical measures that would either force a power grab or create a health care crisis on Long Island. Nassau residents should no more trust Albany or NIFA with their health care than they should Newsday to run an emergency room.

“The bi-partisan NHCC Board and leadership will continue the real progress it is making toward fiscal sustainability and do everything within their power to prevent the hospital from being taken over by politicians and operatives with no relevant experience, who have repeatedly demonstrated an abject inability to be good stewards of public resources. This institution and the people we serve are too important.”

Attributable to Matthew J. Bruderman, Chairman, Nassau Health Care Corporation (NHCC)

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