Transfer of Ownership Is Optional
To the Editor:

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant for new hospital construction can easily be pursued by the Mackinac Straits Hospital Authority as it exists now.

The transfer of ownership is purely optional.

Every regulation contained in the Compiled Federal Regulations which govern the provision of both direct and indirect loans from the USDA in its Rural Development Program can be examined without finding a single requirement, technical or otherwise, necessitating a private, corporate structure.

Apparently, Mackinac Straits Hospital board's lawyers chose to pursue this financing package as a private corporation. USDA has no "technical requirement" which requires the transfer of assets, liabilities, and revenues of all Mackinac County health facilities obtained over the past 60 years.

Yet, to better persuade voters that this change is in the better interests of the public, the campaign to approve this hospital proposal has indeed presented a picture of studied inaccuracy.

Left unexamined so far is the question whether our community's better interests concerning the provision of health care services throughout Mackinac County might better be represented with the Mackinac Straits Hospital Authority making application for the USDA financing in order to channel these public funds to public needs.

This approach would not need any transfer of ownership.

Mary Elizabeth Nichols

St. Ignace