Conspiracy in the Health Industry?

Jeffrey A. Sachs, left, and Andrew M. Cuomo in 2006. Mr. Sachs is a leader of Governor Cuomo’s Medicaid redesign team.

To gain a political standpoint, a person needs copious amounts of their own money or funding from groups. In Jeffrey Sachs' case, he started as a dentist and worked his way up as a paid consultant for big health companies. At the same time, he is the advisor of Governor Cuomo from New York. His political position allowed him to be on the administration for controlling the Medicaid cost. The worry is that his two occupations will crossover in scandalous ways.

But at the same time, Mr. Sachs, known to many in Albany as “Andrew’s best friend,” is working as a paid consultant to some of the biggest players in the New York health care industry, including Mount Sinai Medical Center, NYU Langone Medical Center and the state’s largest association of nursing homes, all of which have financial interests at stake in the coming Medicaid changes.

Maybe Sachs is indeed a straight and narrow politician, but if his career was predicated on a good turnout for those who fund him, then the decision will be easy for Sachs. Evidence suggests he has lobbyist involvement without declaring it.

“As you explained — and I appreciate your candor — you have been pressured by NYU through Jeff Sachs to have me resign as a condition for your reappointment as commissioner of mental health,” Dr. Koplewicz wrote in the letter.

The delay startled officials at both hospitals, in part because Mr. Cuomo’s budget, released earlier in the month, had already authorized other financing related to the merger. The decision threatened to imperil the merger, without which LICH would be forced to close. But the delay had one potential beneficiary: Brooklyn Hospital Center, a Sachs client, which stood to absorb most of LICH’s patients should that hospital close down. 

The following day, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said that the administration had decided to hold up all the grants as part of a review likely to take two to three weeks. After local officials protested the decision and after inquiries from The Times, the administration announced three days later that the LICH grant would proceed.

 If incidents such as this persist, the people will have problems trusting those in power, not to mention the health care ideal will suffer. The actions of those who wish to make a profit should not damage the future of coming generations.