Indigent Medical Care as a Gift
I am writing in response to a letter from Dr. Arthur Silk. Dr. Silk states the poor have no powerful citizens groups to lobby for them, “no Gray Panthers battling for the destitute.”
Dr. Silk does not have his facts straight. The Gray Panthers, National Council of Senior Citizens, AARP and the Society to Protect Social Security and Preserve Medicare have been actively advocating a National Health Program that would provide access to all for years.
On the local scene, the California Gray Panthers, California Congress of Seniors, the California Senior Legislature and the Senior Citizens Advisory Council of Orange County all actively advocated California SB 2668, which would have provided affordable health care to all Californians. They did not support SB 2505, written by the California Medical Assn., which had no cost controls and would have been administered by a board dominated by health-care providers, doctors and hospitals.
Further, he bashes Proposition 13 for causing the crisis. Orange County spends less per capita for health care for the needy than any other county in the state.
ROBERT SHAFFER
Yorba Linda
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