Health Care: Pieces of sky

[An Oct. 4 editorial from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

The state's perennial initiative pusher sneered back in 1999 at concerns over the effects of his "$30 tabs" proposal. Politicians, he said, were claiming that the "sky would fall" if everyone paid hundreds less in Motor Vehicle Excise Taxes...

Thanks to the loss of the MVET and rising health care costs, the curtain was about to fall on patients at three north King County health clinics that had been recommended for closure.

County Executive Ron Sims' budget gives the clinics a budget reprieve -- but only until June.

"Patients are very scared. Half have no health insurance," says Dr. Michael Lippman at North Clinic. "They're a sick population and there's nowhere else to go. They're going to be staying home and getting sicker or flooding the ERs."