Providence portrayal wrong

The problem with Gene Grossmann’s Feb. 17 letter regarding the regulation of birth control coverage for private employers is that Grossman presents an inaccurate picture of Providence Health & Services.

He asserts that Sacred Heart Medical Center is an a priori ethical organization run by kind-hearted Catholic sisters. In fact, SHMC is part of Providence, an enormous health care organization, which though nonprofit in name, is a major player in our for-profit medical system that systematically marginalizes more than 50 million Americans.

Providence has expanded throughout the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Montana and California, monopolizing health care systems and perpetuating the high-cost, low-accountability American medical system.

Providence accepts billions in government payments and receives preferential tax status under federal law while bawling for special status as a religious organization. Providence is run by lay managers and medical professionals whose rich salaries testify to their lack of charitable motivation, and to the need for them to be regulated along with other profit-seeking corporate managers.

The long and the short of it is, if you want to take the federal dollar, as Providence does, you ought to have the integrity to accept federal regulation without hiding behind the vestments of religiosity.

Christopher Parkin

Spokane