Bob Frank is the current president of the University of New Mexico. In late November, it was announced that he was taking a newly created position at UNM Hospital with a salary of approximately $350,000 and a full benefits package. In the last week, an audit of Frank’s expense account showed some costly errors. A release of HR reports show he has taken no vacation time, perhaps trying to cash out on the time when he leaves the university for the hospital. In two cases, his expenses were overpaid and in one case he claimed reimbursement for a flight that was fully refunded to him. In another case he claimed reimbursement for using frequent flier miles, something that goes against university policy.
Last month, a Republican representative tried to attack a mill levy renewal intended to fund the UNMH by pointing out that CFO Steve McKernan has received approximately 237 percent in raises over the last decade. The implication was that only McKernan and other hospital big wigs truly benefited from tax money. It needs to be noted here that on average nurses at UNMH have only received 1 percent in raises per year for the last decade. This year they got ZERO. In fact, all three unions who represent workers at UNMH, ranging from resident doctors to nurses to techs and groundskeepers, received zero in raises. Further it should be noted that resident doctors carry about a half million in student loan debt and earn about $14/hr. It should also be noted that the staff picnic for all support workers at the hospital was cancelled this year due to “funding issues.” The hospital claimed they needed to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. Maybe that was to protect McKernan’s raise.
The proposed tax intended to fund UNMH was approved, but it remains to be seen if any of those funds will trickle down from McKernan and Frank’s pockets to the poor who desperately need care.
Once again, the elites get all the money meant for the poor and the working class. We all shake our head in disgust at the news reports, but nothing changes. They take the money, we are disgusted, the workers go without, the poor go without. Calls for reform will be made and accountability will be demanded. Some minor reforms might be put into place if the public outcry is loud enough. It is the same old maneuvers where capitalist criminals harm the poor and the workers to line their pockets and then promise change so this will NEVER happen again. In fact the UNM Board of Regents decided this week to take no further action against Frank.
We need to acknowledge that New Mexico is a very poor state, one of the poorest in the nation. There are limited means and the need for UNMH health services, the state’s only safety net and Trauma 1 medical facility, is very real.
Does this mean that residents are doomed to go without care? Or is it a systemic issue of capitalism that can be overcome? It seems there is another path when you look at the health care system of Cuba, a developing socialist country just 90 miles from the U.S.
According to a June 2016 article in Al-Jazeera, despite the economic decline caused the by fall of the Soviet Union, “Cubans still have better access to healthcare than the majority of those living in many developing nations, where public health is shockingly inadequate.”
In 2015, BBC reported that in Cuba, “there are 90,000 doctors. That’s eight for every 1,000 citizens – more than double the rate in the US and in the UK (the US has 2.5 doctors per 1,000, the UK 2.7 per 1,000 according to the World Bank).” The Cuban system focuses on preventative care.
With all of this in mind you have to wonder how Albuquerque, N.M. got to this place where the poor and working class are completely left out while the rich elite take tax money to give themselves 237 percent in raises and reimbursement for airline miles. Tired of this dance? Socialism offers the only winning solution to this ongoing scenario where the rich continue to steal from the poor.
