Kinder, Gentler My Ass

This Hartford Courant Editorial seems to suggest that thanks to last year's frantic "reforms," everything's peachy keen at Yale-New Haven Hospital nowadays, or at least improving. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. The free care application process remains arcane and inaccessible. The curtailing of lien tactics, which came about because of massive popular pressure on the hospital, does not mean that the hospital can now continue to shirk its responsibility to provide patients with affordable care uncompromised by CEO Joseph Zaccagnino et al's corporate profiteering, which continues to this day. And 1800 hospital workers still do not have the right to a voice on the job free from intimidation. Until the hospital agrees to enter a real dialogue with the community and its workers, pronouncements of the hospital's "Kinder, Gentler" nature are not only premature, but ridiculous and wholly inaccurate.