Hollywood Jew

Email | Print | Text - Text +

August 19, 2010 | 10:30 am

The Motion Picture Home closure: Callous act or necessary evil?

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Photo

In the months I spent investigating the pending closure of The Motion Picture Home for this week’s cover story, I was moved by the courage of the home’s residents and their families. Leaving your home is rarely easy, and in this case, made more complicated by the fact that these residents were asked to leave against their will.

But while my knee-jerk reaction was to rail against the Motion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF), the non-profit charity that runs the home and is supported by many of the biggest names in Hollywood—Spielberg, Katzenberg, Douglas, to name just a few—I came to discover a far more complex situation than a battle between opposing forces.

Because the fund is seen as an enterprise of the wealthy and powerful, many wouldn’t accept the claim that they couldn’t afford to operate long-term care. I heard many times over: How could Steven Spielberg let this happen? Are you telling me that Jeffrey Katzenberg can’t give away a few more million? In this battle, there is certainly a camp that believes Hollywood’s wealthy should step up and pay for the cost discrepancy between health care reimbursements and what it costs to operate the nursing home—which the fund claims is about $1 million per month. But what gets lost in that demand is the acknowledgment that many of those people already give—and give a lot. Are we really going to suggest that Spielberg and Katzenberg aren’t philanthropic enough? That seems a dangerous line.

Now it’s true that in recent years, the fund has shifted their financial priorities from covering the costs of long-term care to developing lifestyle facilities for independent and active adults. Some see this as unfair and shallow, but the MPTF believes it is the more sustainable model for their organization and they have a right to prioritize their solvency. Irma Kalish, a former MPTF board member who served the organization for 27 years aptly pointed out that the fund, which was founded as a social justice initiative, has, in recent years, become more corporate and therefore most concerned about its bottom line.

Most of all, the tragedy at the Motion Picture Home is about the utter vulnerability of the nation’s elderly poor. Their health care is so expensive, not even a well-endowed Hollywood charity could support it—and continue to support the 60,000 other people it serves through its outpatient health care clinics. To preserve itself, the fund chose a utilitarian model of health care: provide the greatest number of services to the greatest number of people. That does not obviate the tragedy the impact of closing long-term care has on its residents, but it does help explain it.

This is a battle with no clear villain, a problem with no clear solution.

According to a 2006 essay on aging in Commentary Magazine by Leon R. Kass and Eric Cohen, [due to medical advances] “Average life expectancy in the United States is now seventy-eight years and rising (up from forty-seven in 1900), and those over age eighty-five are already the fastest growing segment of the population.” But along with longer life expectancy comes a period of frailty and decline, placing increasing demands on end-of-life caregivers. The article cites a Rand Study that found “roughly 40 percent of deaths in the United States are now preceded by a period of enfeeblement, debility, and (often) dementia lasting up to a decade.”

Because of lower birthrates, the number of working-age caregivers is dwindling, while modern families, according to the article, are “smaller, less stable and more geographically spread out”. The wealthy, who can afford round the clock care, have to contend with a shortage of professional help, which may be related to the unglamorous work associated with caregiving. But the majority of the American population, however, will struggle with the rising costs of long-term care. And inevitable demands for social reform will pose a huge fiscal challenge to government sponsored health care.

The Commentary article concluded: “Endless chatter about ‘healthy aging’ is at bottom a form of denial. Ultimately, the nursing home refutes the dream of limitless progress toward ageless bodies, and America will surely be building many more nursing homes in the years ahead.”

Is the Motion Picture and Television Fund abandoning its mission? Maybe, in part. The only thing that could preserve the remaining residents’ way of life would be an incredible act of charity. I suppose, the kind of act the MPTF’s founders hoped to make real.

Read my full story on the closure of the Motion Picture Home here:

One day last spring, Jill Schary-Robinson Shaw was walking through a quiet, darkened corridor in the long-term care unit at The Motion Picture Home, the iconic Woodland Hills nursing home for entertainment industry veterans and their families. Hardly anyone was around — lights were dim, residents alone in their rooms — as Schary-Robinson Shaw, the daughter of Isadore “Dore” Schary, who ran MGM in the 1950s, wheeled her husband, Stuart Shaw, a resident of the home, around his desolate indoor neighborhood.

“There used to be wonderful entertainments,” Schary-Robinson Shaw said. “Pianists, musicians. But it’s all changed. Replaced by a mood of tension — a foreboding.”

3 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google FaviconGoogle Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback. Comments may not exceed 700 characters.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Terms of Service

JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details.

“not even a well endowed Hollywood charity could support it [the Motion Picture “Home”]
Your kidding right, Danielle?  You forgot to mention a few relevant facts you are fully aware of:
Fund leaders absolutely refuse to fundraise for the Home, refuse all donations for the Home.  Did you ask them why?  If so, what did they say?  As co- founders of “Saving the Lives Of Our Own”, Nancy Biederman and I met with then CEO David Tillman shortly after the announcement of intended closure.  Ms. Biederman asked him “how much money do we need to raise to keep the Home open?  He responded “no amount of money will stop the planned closure.”
You seem to accept the Fund’s position the Nursing Home is losing $1 million each month, yet you are aware but failed to mention the Fund receives about $11,300 for each resident each month from combined Medi-Cal, Social Security and private pays; probably more than any other nursing home in the state, country, maybe world.  That’s about $26 million per year for a full house of 185 residents at the “Actor’s Home.”  The Fund bills and receives additional monies for medical tests and prescriptions.
You are also aware that the Fund owns the land, buildings and has “charitable tax status.”  Tell me Danielle, do you really believe their claim it is costing them about $37 million per year, especially under these circumstances to care for 185 residents?  You also failed to mention George Clooney’s gracious offer a few months back to bring in his pals Brad Pitt and Matt Damon to raise the funds to keep the Home open permanently.  Tell me, did the Fund leaders jump on that one or is there something to the belief of lots of people that Fund leaders have no value for the lives of the most sick, handicapped and elderly on the Motion Picture Fund Campus.  Correct me if I’m wrong, they were the only ones targeted for eviction from the Campus, and their Home - the only facility targeted for “permanent” closure.  I look forward to your response.

Comment by Andrew Suser on 8/19/10 at 9:04 pm

While I appreciate your genuine search for the truth, I believe that there are some hard facts that are not entering into your assessment of the situation.  Andrew Suser pretty much spelled it out. 

What irks me personally, is that the new regime is purposely misrepresenting themselves to the motion picture and television industry.  This is not about money, and to give credibility to that argument is buying into their propaganda.  Molly Forrest pretty much laid it out, and in doing so sanctified the commitment that she and her board members have to their elderly.  Of course Katzenberg and Spielberg are very charitable - when it suits them.  It’s easy to write a check when you have it, not so easy to look inward and assess one’s own motives.

It all boils down to a statement that was told to me in confidence by an extremely famous and influential member of the motion picture industry…

“Richard, welcome to the Enron of elder care.”

Comment by Richard Stellar on 8/20/10 at 10:08 am

Thank you for your cover story Living In Limbo dated August 17th, 2010. 
You gave me hope one day and then crushed it two days later. I can only imagine the kind of pressure that the Jewish Journal would face following the release of your first story. The MPTF and its surrogates play hardball. The New York Times got pounded by MPTF interests after its MPTF expose in 2009.

In your follow-up article posted on August 19 you suggest that it¹s not OK for anyone to question Mr. Katzenberg and others about their non-commitment to saving the MPTF¹s Long Term Care and Acute Care Hospital units through fundraising and philanthropic giving. On the contrary, it¹s very important to question why Mr. Katzenberg and others have refused to apply their considerable arm-twisting skills to saving the centerpiece of the MPTF¹s charitable mission.

Why won¹t these guys write the big checks for LTC anymore? And why won’t they accept checks from other people and groups who want to contribute? Fundraising pros say that raising $12 million more a year to save Long Term Care isn¹t an issue. The money can be raised. Even Ken Scherer could do it if he was told that his job depended on it. The real issue at the MPTF is the agenda. The agenda, some suggest, is to convert the MPTF from a 501c3 charity into a “for-profit” company retooled to be the industry¹s primary provider of paid healthcare services.

Who would own the campus and the infrastructure that industry workers have supported for 89 years with payroll deductions and tax-deductible contributions? It could be that the owner will be MPTF, Inc., a completely restructured entity with major industry players as its biggest stockholders. From their positions as heads of studios and major companies they could horse trade to secure lucrative union agreements that will support their new healthcare enterprise.

While MPTF board members and top management will win big, industry workers will lose because the MPTF’s mission guided commitment to charity will be gone. To use a movie comparison, the MPTF was founded by good Samaritans to be the George Bailey of Hollywood—a charity that could provide moral balance against Old Man Potter—the bottom line focus of Big Hollywood business interests.  Moving into the future, if MPTF charity is abandoned, Old Man Katzenberg and his pals will push charity completely aside in the name of ever increasing profit.

These kinds of musings get written because the MPTF operates with virtually no transparency. If they would just say what they are doing the industry could respond to facts. Instead they “play it closed” with their agenda hidden by platitudes and false compassion. Keep your eyes open for the next false choice offered by MPTF leaders in the name of “we can¹t raise enough money.”

Comment by Dean Butler on 8/24/10 at 2:47 pm

Post a Comment

Name:  
Email:  

Type the word you see below:

Comment:


About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive






Newspaper

Serving a community of 600,000, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles is the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City. Our award-winning paper reaches over 150,000 educated, involved and affluent readers each week. Subscribe here.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.
All rights reserved. JewishJournal.com is hosted by Nexcess.net. Homepage design by Koret Communications.
Widgets by Mijits. Site construction by Hop Studios.

counter fake hit page