Swan Song
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Colleagues:
This is my 40th and last Pulse Message as your President. One of the joys of the office has been the opportunity to do media interviews. My first week in office saw interview requests from the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. My last week was just as busy and was notable for a request from Newsday’s reporter stationed in DC, asking about MSSNY’s attitude towards the proposed federal Medicaid budget cuts.
Towards the middle of the 30-minute interview, the reporter told me that his newspaper’s interests were focused on Long Island, and he wanted to know why MSSNY was even interested in Medicaid considering that Long Island was mostly just rich people. Before answering, the first thought that came to my mind is where is this question coming from and what are the stereotypes that are in this reporter’s mind about Long Islanders, doctors on Long Island, and a medical society with its central office on Long Island?
As someone whose father started on the loading docks of Grumman, as someone who graduated high school at Commack South, and as someone who graduated medical school as the first of my family to be a doctor, there was plenty that I could have said about my personal knowledge of the working poor on Long Island. But the way the question was posed was unexpected, and I had not prepared for a line of questioning like this. Nevertheless, I did respond that 20% of Long Islanders are on Medicaid, and with 8 million people living on Long Island, that still made for a lot of working poor that live there, and I also pointed out how close to the margin the practices are that depend on Medicaid to service their patients. You can see my quotes in Newsday by clicking here.
As an aside, for those MSSNY members that have written in about their concerns that MSSNY has not signed on to certain letters and petitions calling for opposition to any and all cuts to Medicaid, please be assured that MSSNY has been highly active to oppose Medicaid cuts to physician services. The Newsday article is one of many examples of how we have been outspoken and proactive.
It has been my pleasure to be your MSSNY President this past year, and I have enjoyed the privilege of writing this weekly Pulse Message for you. I hope you have found my column entertaining and informative. I will be turning my gavel over to our President-Elect, Dr. David Jakubowicz, on Sunday, April 6, during MSSNY’s House of Delegates Annual Meeting.
All the best,
Jerome C. Cohen, MD
MSSNY President
