Brooklyn Boro

Top comments from our exclusive LICH billing exposé

August 7, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
An aerial view of Long Island College Hospital (LICH). Photo by Mary Frost
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Eagle reporter Mary Frost’s in-depth, exclusive report on how SUNY mismanaged and lost more than $100 million in LICH funds elicited over a dozen passionate and heartfelt reader comments. Here’s a sampling of a few we’d like to highlight: 

  • Remsen Street Dweller says that this LICH report isn’t just business. It’s personal.

I’m going to say it here and now. This is personal, all of you. The government of New York State went after our hospital. The one in our neighborhood. The one that we used. The one that served these communities honorably for 156 years.

The government of New York State went in and plotted and planned a takeover of LICH. It approved of stealing money, equipment, services from our hospital. It stole from it and plundered it, destroying it against our protests, against court orders, against human health and decency.

Some government we got here in New York State, people. This is what we pay taxes for. The government behind this is worse than the criminals on the street. The government makes a pretense of charging everyday people with crimes, and trying their cases in courts, and, in many cases, putting them in jail. But what about the criminals running our state government, our university system and our department of health. Who is going to try them? Who is going to put them in jail?

We’ve all been horribly betrayed by New York State.

  • Gbkm claims that SUNY made sure that none of LICH’s revenue was coming back to the hospital, ensuring its failure. 

It was “producing enough revenue”. McCalls people in charge at downstate were just making sure that none of LICH’s revenue got to LICH. It’s surprising that anyone who followed the situation is surprised about what they read in that article. LICH Staff was blowing the whistle on this from the very beginning in Jan 2013 & Let everyone know that SUNY was manufacturing an excuse to justify closure by misrepresenting facts & figures & failing its administrative duty to LICH, leaving millions uncollected for LICH while paying millions to the previous owners to handle the billing. But SUNY had their story & was sticking to it & used it to get LICH closed. Who gets held accountable for this fraud on the taxpayer?

  • And finally, B K says that everything that was reported was alreadt common knowledge and that nobody should really be surprised.
Why is everyone so shocked? This is common knowledge. Has been talked about & Testified on. Discussed in interviews with media & with politicians since beginning of 2013. It’s been complained about to SUNY since they took over in 2011. Reported to judges, ombudsmen & Albany. Every time SUNY said lich is losing millions, docs & employees countered with all of this. Nothing was done about it. Politicians let SUNY get away with their unfounded claims. Now it’s all a shock? When McCall & his minions talked about correcting their billing problems they were talking about the downstate problems. They did nothing to correct this for lich. Part of the strategy to let lich starve to death & be tossed to the vultures. This is a scandal & every lawmaker in this state should be throwing a fit about it. They aren’t. Great reporting but what good is it now? SUNY kept lich from getting its money, then once they closed the place they’re trying to raid the patients. No one should pay penny of any of those bills.
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