Why Did the Lobbyist Chicken Cross the Road?
Raske-look alike outside the GNYHA offices
What are you, a chicken?
That was Housing Works’ question for Greater New York Hospital Association President Ken Raske in a new radio ad and at a protest outside the GNYHA offices Wednesday. Housing Works is calling out Raske for refusing State Health Commissioner Richard Daines’ challenge to debate the state’s proposed Medicaid reforms which would improve health care for the State’s poor.
Housing Works’ radio ad is running on the “Fred Dicker – Live from the State Capitol” show on Talk 1300 AM between 10am and 11am until Tuesday March 10. The ad is a fake conversation between Raske and Daines, with “Raske” clucking like a chicken while “Daines” explains the merits behind the Governor’s Medicaid reform plan. Paterson’s plan will save New Yorkers $2.4 billion while actually expanding access to health care.
In a protest Wednesday, Housing Works and our allies from the Commission on the Public’s Health System picketed outside GNYHA’s Manhattan offices, chanting “Raske, Raske you don’t care! You’re laying eggs on good health care!”
Watch video of the protest:
Ken Raske Protest Footage from Housing Works on Vimeo.
Housing Works’ ad is a response to a multi-million dollar ad campaign by GNYHA and the 1199 health care workers’ unions misleading the public on Paterson’s Medicaid reforms.
Although Housing Works doesn’t have the budget of the big dogs, our ad and protest has received attention from the New York Daily News, the Associated Press and PolitickerNY.
The GNYHA is not as enthralled by Housing Works’ efforts. Brian Conway, GNYHA vice president of media relations and public affairs issued the following statement:
“Housing Works may have tarnished any chance of being taken seriously in New York’s health care debate. The same day they were releasing offensive caricatures and staging ill-informed protests, Ken Raske was in Albany doing the serious work of fighting for a budget that protects hospitals, nursing homes, and home care from drastic funding cuts. Their actions have also exposed the call for a public debate as the publicity stunt it was and is. And had anyone at Housing Works paid a fraction of attention to what GNYHA has been saying for months, they’d know that we strongly support additional investments in primary and preventive care.”
Housing Works President and CEO Charles King defended Housing Works’ protest and ads as a way of drawing attention to the improvements that Paterson’s health care plan would have on the lives of poor people.
“It’s ironic that Raske accuses Housing Works of not taking the healthcare debate seriously when he won’t even participate in a debate. It’s time for him to stop hiding behind his slick ad campaign,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King.
Strange bedfellows The New York Times, New York Post and New York Daily News have all run editorials lambasting the Greater New York Hospital Association for its self-interested attempts to sabotage the Governor’s plan. Housing Works support of the plan is detailed in an op-ed that ran in the New York Daily News. Medicaid Matters New York, an advocacy group for New York State’s four million Medicaid recipients, also supports the Governor’s changes.
Posted on March 6, 2009 at 2:23 am
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