On the recordMay 21, 2014
yesterday I was visited by several hospitals from Chicago. Mount Sinai is an amazing hospital. It originally--you can tell by its name--was founded by Jewish families living in a section of Chicago. The families have moved on. The remaining population is largely African American and Hispanic. It is a very poor neighborhood. It is a violence-ridden neighborhood. But in an amazing show of magnanimity and charity, many of the Jewish families whose ancestors and predecessors predated them and founded this hospital continue to support Mount Sinai. It is a beacon of quality medical care in one of the toughest, meanest neighborhoods in that great city. They came to speak yesterday, to meet with me. They just merged with another extraordinary hospital, Holy Cross Hospital in Marquette Park. I have a special affection for this hospital because for decades it was run by the Sisters of St. Casimir, a Lithuanian Catholic order of nuns who devoted their lives first to the Lithuanian population that lived in that neighborhood and then, after that population left, to those who came after them, many of them very poor people. Mount Sinai and Holy Cross merged, and between the two of them, I can't think of better examples of hospitals with a mission to help the poorest people and to make certain they have care that all of us would like to have for our families. They came yesterday to talk to me about the Affordable Care Act.…
