News Corp. and Cablevision Systems Corp. said Monday, Oct. 18 they would resume negotiations to resolve an impasse over program fees.

Cablevision’s agreement to offer some News Corporation-owned programming to Cablevision’s customers expired on Friday, Oct. 15 and, in the absence of a new agreement, News Corp. chose to remove Fox 5 New York, MY9 New York, Fox 29, FOX Business Network, FOX Deportes and Nat Geo Wild from Cablevision, company officials said.

“Removing these channels was News Corp.’s decision, not Cablevision’s.  We apologize for the inconvenience News Corp. has caused,” they said in a statement on their website.

“While we work to return these channels to the lineup, [viewers] can watch Fox 5 New York, MY9 New York and Fox 29 free over the air by obtaining a digital TV antenna from your local consumer electronics store. Or, [they] can watch almost all of the FOX prime time programming free on the Internet at hulu.com or fox.com,” they added.

By Robyn Nadel

NORTH BERGEN – For the third consecutive year, the Maternity Center at Palisades Medical Center (PMC), in the township, has received a 5-Star Rating from HealthGrades, the nation’s leading independent healthcare ratings company.

The Maternity Center at PMC, which features private suites, state-of-the art technology, first-rate physicians and specialists, and spectacular views of the New York City skyline, received the HealthGrades’ highest ratings among 14 hospitals that serve Hudson and Bergen counties.  HealthGrades’ 5-Star Rating also places the Maternity Center at Palisades in the top 15 percent of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals.

“We are very proud to receive a 5-Star Rating from HealthGrades for the third consecutive year,” said Bruce J. Markowitz, president and CEO of Palisades Medical Center.  “This latest report demonstrates a standard of high-quality, personalized care that remains consistent over time.  It also reflects on the culture of excellence that our physicians, skilled nurses, and devoted staff practice on a daily basis.”

For information or to take a tour of the Maternity Center at PMC, call 201-854-5702.

Douglas E. Hall

By Douglas E. Hall

Something’s going on with the Obama Administration and the extensive health legislation passed by Congress in March.

I don’t know how many other readers may have received the mailing I got a little over a week ago.  It was personally addressed to me from the Department of Health and Human Services in Baltimore.  Inside was a heavy glossy stock paper eight and one-half inches by 22 inches folded in half and then in thirds.  There were several full-color photos including one of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  The message of this mailing is that the new health care law is great and is just what the country needs.

Now, less than a week later I and other members of the press were invited to Holy Name Medical Center to attend what was billed as a tele-town meeting on the new health care law.  Senator Robert Menendez was invited to answer questions that were phoned in.  Doug Johnston, government affairs director of AARP (the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons) was in charge of coordinating calls.  Working with a laptop on the table in front of him, Mr. Johnston announced the callers, who were then heard on a speaker phone hookup asking questions.  But sometimes Mr. Johnston read the questions from his laptop. It soon became apparent to me that Mr. Johnston’s laptop was functioning somewhat like a teleprompter.  He’s getting all the callers first names and their questions.  He may be choosing the callers that he will announce, or the ones that get through are pre-selected by a screener working at a vast telephone bank.

It went smoothly as we were told the call-ins from interested parties have climbed to more than 10,000 from all over the state.  Few of these callers got to ask questions, but all were encouraged to keep listening on their phones.

After awhile, it seems to me that no matter what the callers asked, Senator Menendez was going to focus on two topics: drug costs and payments to doctors.

First there was discussion on the lessening impact of the so-called donut payment schedule for drugs – which under Medicare Part D there exists a payment gap between initial drug cost reimbursements and drug costs in catastrophic situations.  Under the new health care law cuts will decrease next year.

Under current law, if you have expenses in the coverage gap, you will receive a $250 rebate from Medicare.

Beginning next year, if you reach the donut hole, you will be given a 50 percent discount on the total cost of brand name drugs while in the gap.  Medicare will phase in additional discounts on the cost of both brand name and generic drugs.

By 2020, these changes will effectively close the coverage gap and rather than paying 100 percent of the costs, your responsibility will be 25 percent of the costs.

Then there was the issue of an automatic 21 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, which has many doctors and the American Medical Association are up in arms about.  The House of Representatives voted May 28 to postpone the pay reduction, but the Senate failed to act by a June 1 deadline.  Senator Menendez predicted that there would be a “doc fix,” a term used in Congress referring to adjusted payments to physicians.

As the hour rolled by, I became more and more convinced that I was witnessing a prepackaged presentation to get a specific message across.

There was no controversy, no tough hard-hitting questions, no embarrassing questions, not even stupid questions.  For all I knew, the voices heard on the speaker phone could have been pre-recorded or even actors.

As time went along, we heard fewer and fewer actual voices on the speaker phone as Mr. Johnston increasing read questions from his laptop.

Asked about this after the meeting, Mr. Johnston said he did this to speed up the meeting as it was running late.  He also said, when asked, that questions that were insulting or off-the discussion of health care were eliminated.

I have no doubt that the callers whose voices were heard in the conference room at Holy Name were legitimate AARP members calling in, but the performance was so well managed that it had a very unreal quality to it.  It was Orwellian, scary in a way.  Through our technological advances, and a very smoothly operating system of screening calls, free speech had been replaced by controlled speech, but it masqueraded as a free and open discussion.

So with the broken oil well continuing to befoul the Gulf of Mexico and the coastal areas of several states and public concerns rising over a growing national debt, the Obama Administration has found something they can promote: the new and expanded medical coverage signed into law by President Obama on March 22.