Another interesting facet of this was the recent announcement by the brain trust at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership that they had completed one of their famous studies that �surprise, surprise � confirmed everything that wanted it to hear. Kicking Erie County�s patients to the curb will actually save something like thirty-two million dollars a year!

Apparently the well-insured folks over at the Partnership missed the previous week�s edition of The New England Journal of Medicine in which three different studies confirmed that blacks receive a poorer level of health care than their fellow Americans.

In an editorial Dr. Nicole Lurie wrote that, �During the past decade, hundreds of articles have been published documenting the existence of racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care � a data deluge that has led many observers to suggest that it is time to stop documenting disparities and turn our efforts to doing something about them.�

Will privatizing ECMC be the panacea for these disparities? Don�t bet your life on it, unless of course that choice has already been made for you by unelected power brokers.

County Control Board Update: PFM=Patronage For Moolah! With all the wailing and nashing of teeth over Joel Giambra�s �friends and family plan,� you would think the new Erie County control board�s first order of business would be to re-implement some sort of civil service rules or maybe taking back the keys to all the taxpayer-funded SUV�s. If you thought that, you would be dead wrong.

The first order of business was to bring in accountants, but not just any accountants. The new control board brought in Republican-friendly accountants, accountants who are just as politically connected as poor old Victor Getz.. But don�t call them patronage hires! After all, they�re consultants! And although they�ll put the County into the red for about another million, give or take, the good news is that they�ll tell Republican fossil Ned Regan and his cronies whatever it is they want to hear.

PFM is an acronym for Public Financial Management an outfit that served as a vehicle for Samuel P. Katz, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of Philadelphia a few years back. Katz became very wealthy with PFM, which fell into a niche market of consulting with government on how to do expensive projects, like sports stadiums. They did the kind of studies that confirmed how necessary these projects were for their host communities. If you�re looking for an indication of what sort of fiscal tack PFM might recommend for Western New York�s �baby� control board, you might note that one of Katz�s campaign planks for Mayor of Philadelphia was to float bonds with which to provide a tax cut. How�s that for fiscal discipline!

Why scrimp and save when you can borrow and spend right now? Nobody knows how to run up the good times on the government�s dime like the Republicans. When they point the finger at tax and spend liberals, remember, there�s four fingers pointing back at them. Of course, they don�t care, they�re laughing all the way to the banks (which they own). You wanna talk about deficits?

Most recently, PFM has been mired in an ethics controversy in Ohio. Brian Hicks a prolific fundraiser for George Bush, and a close associate of Republican Governor Bob Taft, was accused earlier this summer of violating Ohio�s revolving-door restrictions against lobbying State officials for one year after leaving office.

Ted Ricci, managing director of Public Financial Management's Cleveland office told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Hicks helped PFM retain a treasury contract but that he failed to land the firm another contract. Downplaying Hicks� lobbying activities, Ricci told the Plain Dealer that "we did 95 percent of it, the heavy lifting, and he did maybe 5 percent."

The Buffalo News did, in fact, report that PFM has given some $23,000 to the Governor and other State Republican entities over the last six years, but their single article did not inform readers of the scope of the firm�s partisanship. The closing quote from Control Board Czar Ned Regan added a nice ironic touch, however: "The route to public policy is through the political process, and that's democracy."

When the political process has been completely hijacked by a handful of self-serving oligopolists, what you�re left with is a corporatist state, not Democracy, Ned.

Casino Buffalo Vs. Buffalo Place Something funny happened on the way to the Seneca Nation of Indians new, done-deal casino in downtown Buffalo. Prominent members of Buffalo�s ruling elite:Paul Ciminelli, Chris Jacobs Howard Zemsky and Keith Belanger actually criticized the idea of the Casino Buffalo project in the Buffalo News!

What the hell is going on here?!

The Board members of the quasi-governmental entity called Buffalo Place have apparently come to the realization that a Native American casino doesn�t fit into the fabric of downtown. Where were they when the gaming compact was pushed through in Albany? Something�s pretty weird about this.

"I think it's going to have a detrimental effect on the office market downtown," said Ciminelli.

Since when? "If you review the (state agreement), we have no control. We have zero control,� said Belanger.

Control over what, Keith?! Your boss Bob Wilmers runs M&T and the City control board! No control? Wow! The compact was a sweetheart deal with our Republican Governor! Did these people actually think the citizens of Buffalo were actually going to control revenue from Casino Buffalo? Does Niagara Falls control anything? Are we really this na�ve?

"There's no guarantee they won't start creeping out," said Chris Jacobs.

Chris, Chris, Chris. Your family�s fortune, the Delaware North empire, is what it is today because of its involvement with gambling! You�re worried about the Seneca�s buying up property and pushing their tax-exempt status? Why? It�s the ultimate money laundering machine, Chris! Why not play ball? Creeping out?! You�re worried about the Senecas creeping out? Isn�t that exactly what your family empire is doing in the charter school movement? Sheesh!

Finally the News article pointed out that, �At the urging of Masiello and downtown building owners Carl Paladino and David Sweet, the Buffalo Place board voted to delay a vote on the casino until next month.�

So apparently the complaint about being powerless includes the right to vacillate. Just because you�re powerless over what happens in your own backyard doesn�t mean you should protest that condition with a meaningless vote. Better wait until the casino is open for business before your do something rash like that, guys. Wouldn�t want to piss off Tony, the village idiot during his last few months at the trough, now would you?

Unbelievable! Are they really this stupid? Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this about gas prices being over three dollars a gallon from now on, and they finally see that the rosy study which the Legislature looked at when they okayed a casino for Buffalo was based on the spike in tourism that occurred when gas was at one dollar a gallon. Of course they didn�t say that, but maybe they were thinking that.

Then again, maybe this is about something else entirely. Maybe this about the Seneca�s recent fallout with Klewin Construction. Klewin is tied to the hip of Pataki crony Charley Garagano so maybe that�s the source of all this sudden discontent. Just please don�t tell us that you�ve been sitting on the sidelines all of this time, never realizing how devastating inner city casinos can be. You�re not that stupid�are you?

Meanwhile the guessing game as to the site continues with the Senecas saying that they�ve narrowed it down to three choices, but not saying where these choices are located. One thing�s for sure, one downtown Casino is equal to three strikes for Buffalo. The Privatization of ECMC

In addition to its killer storm surges along the gulf coast, Hurricane Katrina kicked up something else: the deep divisions of class and race in America. Perhaps not as evident but no less real is the class and race prejudice represented by the local Republican Party�s full court press to privatize Erie County Medical Center, the hospital of last resort for the poor of Erie County.

The most fascinating aspect of this latest initiative to permanently remove yet another portion of the social safety net is the sleight of hand involving imaginary �savings.� The argument goes like this: the patients currently being treated by ECMC can simply be transferred to either the Catholic system or the increasingly monolithic (read: predatory) Kaleida Health. This will ostensibly take Erie County taxpayers out of the �business� of health care. Seems like a no-brainer, until you start to think about who will pick up the tab. Government, at some level must be responsible, for those who are financially incapable of caring for themselves, right? Maybe not in America.

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