Letters

Innocent lives sacrificed Dear Editor: I feel that President Bush deserves impeachment hearings and investigations.

[Dorothy Shoup]

I wholeheartedly agree with Michelle Bacigalupi's comments in letter 3. We do not need another hospital, the associated traffic, etc. so PAMF can make more profits. PAMF wants to build mainly to obtain patients from Oracle, not San Carlos. They do not want to coexist with Sequoia Hospital, they want to take over the physicians and patients of Sequoia Hospital.
Other points I would include are:
1. Why has the City Treasurer, who has the citizens interests in mind, not been included in any of the negotiations? Why did he have to speak as a private citizen at the last City Council meeting?
2. There is no way that San Carlos can get an adequate deal by negotiating with PAMF. PAMF is very experienced at this game, and the City Council is not!
3. If PAMF is being so generous to the City of San Carlos, then why do they retain majority control of the proposed Endowment?
4. Allowing PAMF in our community automatically increases the cost of medical care. They get paid 140+% of Medicare rates by the insurance companies, while your local M.D. gets paid 110%(120% if they're lucky). For instance, an abdominal pelvic ultrasound that usually costs approximately $700, for instance, will be $1000-$1100 at a Sutter or PAMF facility. The average consumer of health care does not have access to this information and, even though they want decreased costs in health care, even if given the information, most will still do nothing to decrease their expenses by going elsewhere. They fall for PAMF's marketing ploys, and also Sutter's. Women can get a mammogram of the same quality with the same equipment at a non-hospital facility in San Mateo for less money, but they go to Mills hospital instead.
5. PAMF says they model themselves after Kaiser! The problem is that Kaiser saves the consumer money, but PAMF is more expensive and COSTS the consumer money. Also, Kaiser has physicians that run a business, but PAMF runs like it has businessmen that just happen to be physicians.
6. PAMF thinks that their model of health care is the "future." This is incorrect. The future of health care is probably a universal payer system, that will be necessary to decrease the cost of healthcare and allow coverage for all. We cannot continue to pay costs at PAMF levels. What will happen to the City of San Carlos if PAMF cannot sustain themselves in the event that universal health care should be implemented?

In the end, the citizens of San Carlos will pay for PAMF to make more money that they will not pay taxes for due to their non-profit status! This is unjust and the U.S. Congress has only recently begun to explore this problem.

[Suzanne Olson]

Letting PAMF come in to San Carlos is a bad idea. We don't want a big city clinic with big city problems to ruin our perfect little town.