Everett, Wash.
Published: Sunday, July 5, 2009

HEALTH CARE

Policy Center has its own agenda

 I have no objection to Dr. Roger Stark presenting his views; he has every right to his opinion. (June 27 guest commentary, "The non-competition health plan.") What I do object to is the presentation that the organization he is representing (Washington Policy Center) is a non-partisan independent policy research organization. The fact that this is how the Policy Center presents itself does not make it true.

If you go to their Web site and look up their board members you will find that virtually all of them have ties to the investment and management side of business and the corporate world and to the Republican side of the political scale -- i.e. right to very right of center.

I would submit that Dr. Stark's viewpoints have been sifted through this sieve of ideology and his column could have just as easily been written by the AMA or the Pharmaceutical Manufactures Association.

My question to Dr. Stark is: If our current system is so superior to any potential government or single payer system, why are over 70 percent of citizens calling for a public option plan? To Dr. Stark's point about rationed health care, I would ask him: Isn't the inability to pay for private insurance managed health care the ultimate form of rationing? Cancer is a sure death sentence for the uninsured. Personally, I'd call that rationing by default. Come on, Doc.

I dare him to write another column that honestly presents answers to the problems rather than the same old tired right-wing scare tactics. Us simple folks out here aren't quite as dumb as you would like us to be.

Clint Wright
Edmonds
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