To the editor:
There are many unresolved environmental impact questions about the huge new campus CPMC wants to build on Van Ness Avenue. The reason Sutter Health (its parent organization) wants this hospital is not to provide the best care for our city, but to develop a regional health care draw that will be prestigious and lucrative for Sutter.
Sutter wants to build this huge complex and downsize (eventually closing) St. Luke’s because this hospital is not a moneymaker, even though it is vital to a large part of the city’s population.
Sutter’s bottom line is profit. Sutter “has market power that commands prices 40 to 70 percent higher than its rivals per typical procedure … Sutter can charge the prices it does because it has acquired more than a third of the market in the San Francisco-to-Sacramento region through more than 20 hospital takeovers in the past 30 years.” (sfgate.com, 2010)
We need a health care plan that serves our city. Such a plan, the Health Care Master Plan, is scheduled for completion in less than six months. Why even consider proceeding with building a huge questionable project piecemeal, when a coordinated plan will be completed in fewer than six months?
Kathie Piccagli
San Francisco
To the Editor:
Your assessment of HBO's 'Newsroom' is
dead on. I've watched every show and they combine drama (fiction) and reality (truth about our culture) in a very entertaining way. Thanks for the article.
Debra-Lou Hoffmann
Forest Ranch, CA
Beyond Chron
126 Hyde Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-771-9850 (phone)
Please do not send anything to this mailing address that is not intended for Randy Shaw or Paul Hogarth. If you wish to reach other Beyond Chron writers directly, please call us.
May 21, 2013
