March 30, 2006 

Letter to the Editor
Modern Healthcare News
360 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60601-3806 

Dear Editor: 

The commentary by Todd Sloane (March 27, 2006) is typical of a small-minded, easily-spun, sloppy industry writer who has never bothered to pick up his telephone to investigate and verify the false allegations he peddles. 

As a producer for CBS’ 60 Minutes wrote in a letter to the American Hospital Association (AHA), “Forbes says his work is on behalf of the uninsured, and is in no way connected with any agenda of any insurance company. All the evidence we’ve seen shows that is correct. And, even Forbes’ harshest critics have not provided any evidence that his work for the uninsured involves promoting, proselytizing or lobbying for any form of insurance.” 

Regardless of Sloane’s regurgitation of the AHA’s venomous lies about our work, the Consejo de Latinos Unidos has been a leading advocacy group in the Latino community, having helped over 7,000 families.  

We successfully brought needed change to an abusive and discriminating police department, ended the bogus trips to Cuba labeled as “religious travel,” helped consumers fight student loans that were fraudulently obtained by now-defunct schools, investigated the corporate misconduct of the makers of Vioxx in Puerto Rico, and have led the fight against hospital price gouging of uninsured patients. 

Our greatest achievement as an organization was earning the release of a Latino man who was wrongly accused of a triple homicide and held in solitary confinement without a trial for fifteen months—an absolute miscarriage of justice. 

But Sloane and the minions that swallow the hook, line, and rotten bait have no understanding of Consejo’s accomplishments because they are blinded by their obsession to blame anyone but the hospital sector itself for hospital price gouging and the wrath it has brought.  

And now with the growing chorus for hospital transparency, Sloane’s commentary serves nothing more than a five-minute Viagra to the hospital insiders and hospital associations that are in a drunken state of denial. 

Like it or not, hospital price gouging is coming to an end and truth-in-pricing is arriving.  

Consejo will continue to protect the interests of the Latino and uninsured communities regardless of what lies and conspiracies Sloane and others disseminate. 

Respectfully submitted, 

K B Forbes 
K.B. Forbes
Executive Director 

Click here for related press release.