“The basic problem is that Columbia is beholden to stockholders who are not in business to provide health care,” Griffith said. John Griffith, a health policy profes sor at the University of Michigan, said health care is not Columbia’s top pri ority. “What we do is apply business prac tices to the business end of health care and apply high-quality, best-practice solutions to the clinical end,” said Jeff Prescott, a Columbia spokesman. Critics say the quality of health care has suffered under Columbia, while the company defends its practices as high-quality and more efficient. In other states, Columbia has gob bled up ailing hospitals and stream lined them into leaner, meaner profit centers, dumping services for the poor and uninsured, shedding medical edu cation and training programs, reduc ing the workforce, busting employee unions and charging substantially higher fees for services. A business-labor-community coalition, aided by the Michigan attorney gener al, is trying to stop the sale. The nation’s largest for-profit hospi tal chain, Columbia-HCA Healthcare Corp., is trying to gain a foothold in the state by buying Lansing’s ailing Michigan Capital Medical Center. 50 75 CENTS ETROIT NEWSPAPER WORKERS A PUBLICATION BY STRIKING THE DETROIT ©TDSJ For-profit, or not-for-profit All sides braced as hospital chain targets Michigan By Michael Betzold Journal Staff Writer © Copyright 1996 Detroit Sunday Journal A Lansing hospital is on the front line in a battle over who will control health care in Michigan in the 21st century.