Subject:
             Another Update on Blues/Union/Tobacco
        Date:
             Thu, 16 Dec 1999 16:59:16 -0800
       From:
             "Robert B. Sklaroff, MD" <rsklaroff@home.com>
 Organization:
             @Home Network
 
 
 

BLUES--

The PA Insurance Department's Presiding Officer issued an Order
(received last night via FAX).  It appears that this process (i.e., a
reconvened Prehearing Conference) won't get revved-up until March.
Hyperlink to the following address (and read the first paragraph) for
information regarding my three submissions to the Insurance Department.
[Please Critique.]  Clearly, anyone with any ideas regarding
(co-)counsel is cordially invited to contact me, ASAP.

http://members.home.net/rsklaroff/homepage-blues.html

UNION--

I was the guest speaker at last night's quarterly medical staff meeting
at JFK, and I laid-out a plan whereby the physicians could help save the
inpatient institution.  The following succinctly summarizes our current
situation, from the unionization perspective.

Kennedy Hospital officials back away from NLRB hearing

The National Labor Relations Board will not need to hold a hearing
tomorrow on whether doctors at union-owned John F. Kennedy Hospital can
join the Federation of Physicians and Dentists.  Samuel Spear, a labor
attorney for the Philadelphia hospital, said a federal mediator will be
asked in the next few weeks to ensure that a majority of doctors have
signed up to be unionized. If so, the hospital will not oppose the
unionizing effort, Spear said. His comments echo similar statements made
last week by Herman "Pete" Matthews, president of AFSCME District
Council 33, which represents Philadelphia's blue-collar workers and owns
Kennedy Hospital. The effort, if successful, would mark the first group
of doctors to unionize at a nongovernmental hospital in Pennsylvania.

http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Dec/16/business/SUM16.htm

TOBACCO--

The following article appeared in today's Pittsburgh/Greensburg
Tribune-Review; I FAX'ed a 50-page set of key documents to one of its
staff-writers last night, presumably for a future article focused upon
the AG's conduct with regard to the (ongoing use of) Sheetz Billboard
Advertising for Tobacco.  This one elucidates some of the national
implications of the third-party problem that has been the subject of the
Wawa litigation I filed a half-year ago.  [The Educational-TV Station in
Pittsburgh is also considering the generation of a report on the current
tobacco situation.]  Meanwhile, another day goes by and nothing has
emerged from either the PA Supreme Court or the Philadelphia Court of
Common Pleas. . . .

http://www.tribunereview.com/business/btob1216.html