Come for the T-Shirt, Stay for the Protest

Monday's D.C. Council hearing on financing the proposed $412 million National Capital Medical Center left those in the audience with lots of questions: Who would run the hospital? Who would decide what services it would provide?

And who was responsible for the T-shirts?

Worn by approximately 25 people wandering in and out of the council chamber all day, they bore bright red letters:

"NCMC. N=No. C=Charitable. M=Medical. C=Care.

"NCMC Stands for No Charitable Medical Care=If you do not have insurance the NCMC will not treat you like D.C. General would."

Although at first glance the shirts looked supportive of the proposed public-private partnership between the city and Howard University, the message mimicked the mantra of David A. Catania (I-At Large), a hospital opponent who chairs the D.C Council's committee on health and who repeatedly said during the lengthy session that the NCMC would not be a replacement for D.C. General Hospital. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) ignited a firestorm when he decided to close the city's public hospital in 2001. Though the hospital was beloved by some city residents for caring for all regardless of ability to pay, Williams put a do-not-resuscitate order on the facility, arguing that it was hemorrhaging money.

It was difficult to get an answer to the T-shirt question, even from some of those wearing the shirts. A few people said they were simply volunteers interested in the hospital issue. Others said they had been given the shirts and told to put them on.

Rodney Riley said he didn't know who had paid for his. Nor did Riley know who had been responsible for sending a van to his house that morning to bring him to the John A. Wilson Building.

"I just come," said Riley, who sat quietly through eight hours of testimony. "I don't have anything else to do."

Rose Hamilton , who lives in Ward 8, said her "boss man brought us here." The boss man turned out to be Bobby Green of the Capitol Area Minority Contractors and Business Association.

Green has been an irritant to city officials before, arguing that not enough construction jobs on big projects such as the convention center and the soon-to-be-built baseball stadium go to black construction workers. He said the shirts were part protest against the new hospital and part protest against the ballpark, a project that incurred Green's wrath because of a project labor agreement that guarantees contracts to union workers. Most of Green's members are not union shops.

Green said many of the workers he represents also do not have health care coverage and need a public hospital, not a pricey medical center that caters to those with insurance cards.