COLUMBUS – Medical students, doctors and progressive organizations are circulating a public letter and petition, which has received about 1,100 signatures, repeating their objections to the Cleveland Clinic’s plan to hold an annual fundraiser at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Resort in Florida and protest demonstrations may be next.
The clinic says donors and hospital executives in Ohio and Florida reviewed the request and decided against changing the venue. A spokeswoman says the event in February isn’t political and the hospital has other ways to advocate for patients.
The group is essentially calling the clinic – Ohio’s largest employer – tone deaf for holding the event at property owned by a president who has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, according to a report by Cleveland.com.
“Donald Trump has come out and said he would let the Affordable Care Act implode,” said Sandy Theis, executive director of Progress Ohio, one of the organizations helping circulate the letter on the website Medium. “So there should be no health care provider, let alone major medical institution, putting money in that man’s pocket.”
Clinic officials and donors use the event to raise up to $1 million annually for medical equipment and care at the Cleveland Clinic Florida in Broward County, but the letter and petition say the clinic should not support a president whose calls to repeal the Affordable Care Act could result in the loss of health coverage for millions of Americans.
That’s not going to happen, at least as plans exist now. The 2018 gala will be right where it’s been. Clinic officials and donors, who use the event to raise up to $1 million annually for medical equipment and care at the Cleveland Clinic Florida in Broward County, decided they still prefer Trump’s club.
Holding a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago “is unacceptable because it symbolically and financially supports a politician actively working to decrease access to health care and cut billions of dollars in research funding from the National Institutes of Health budget,” says the online petition, signed by more than 1,100 people since late July.
A social and fundraising event that helps enrich the private business interests of Trump should be contrary to the Clinic’s core values, supporters of the protest say.