Even though it s a public institution, UC medical center finances are cloaked in mystery. How the medical schools would survive if their cash cow is privatized or given away has not been explained by UC administrators. The same administrators have projected that the medical centers will begin losing money in a few years. But those predictions are based on the worst case scenarios of Medicare reimbursement. They also assume that there will be no healthcare reform by either federal legislation or state initiatives.
Many opponents cite political ideology and private gain as the leading factors.
The Regents and recent top administrative appointees are much more conservative than in past years. When Richard Atkinson was inaugurated as UC president in October 1995, he stated that he wanted to run UC like a corporation. He hired Gurtner two months later as vice president for Clinical Services Development to oversee all of the medical centers. Anti-unionism may well be another prominent factor promoting UC s interest in privatizing. While UC is often described as the worst of the public employers in its treatment of workers and labor organizations, for the most part it has seldom matched blatant anti-unionism often found in the private sector.