By David Cruz
State Sen. Ron Rice (D-28) convened a meeting of Essex County Democratic lawmakers in Newark to hear from the public about what should happen to University Hospital in Newark as part of the proposed merger of the University of Medicine and Dentistry (UMDNJ) and Rutgers.
The merger of UMDNJ with Rutgers is supposed to be settled by July 1, but there are more loose ends to this deal than there are signed agreements. In fact, there are no signed agreements and the politics are getting even more complicated. Sen. Rice, who is on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, says George Norcross, the South Jersey Democratic fundraiser and power broker, has been pushing a deal that benefits the southern part of the state, at the expense of Newark’s University Hospital.
“It started pretty much with the south dictating to, not just the north, but pretty much the rest of the state of New Jersey, and that’s under the leadership of George Norcross,” said Rice. “I respect my colleagues who feel that they have to, more or less, work with that ‘political boss’, even though we get elected and he does not.”
Norcross says both Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University would benefit from the merger by seeing increased enrollment and private funding. He is part of a handful of interested parties and lawmakers who are meeting privately with the governor to come up with a deal that could get legislative support, but critics are concerned that Newark’s University Hospital, which would go it alone under the latest version of the merger deal, would end up being a casualty.
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