<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; min-height: 14px; font-size: 24px;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; font-size: 26px;" class=""><span style="font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px; line-height: normal;" class=""> </span><span style="font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">More than ever, access to quality, local health care depends on a financially- healthy hospital. Today, that requires locals to take active charge of our future. Measure C asks voters to renew our four-decades commitment to the MDCH: to approve funding so this community bedrock sustains its public service mission. A financially stable hospital serves not just patient care but, with 320 employees, long-term economic stability of the North Coast population. </span></div></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">Like deputy sheriffs, police, and fire fighters, medical care and emergency services define baseline thresholds for </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">community health and security. The hospital’s rapid response emergency services (ambulance, paramedics, and emergency room) support public safety after accidents, health crises and disaster events. That we are a remote and rural community only increases the need for a local hospital with local control of elected Board members. Compare direct public governance to privately-run religious or corporate hospitals. We need to keep what we have: quality, local access and local control. It’s the only hospital we have.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline" class="">Fact: </span>our hospital delivers an exceptionally wide range of patient services for its size and location. </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline" class="">Fact: </span>government reimbursements create a daunting dilemma for rural medicine: how to deliver superior care when payments fall far short of baseline costs. </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline" class="">Fact: </span>When the North Coast lost its industrial base, like logging, the hospital lost much of its private, higher-paying insurance. Today Medicare and Medi-Cal pay 80% of annual revenue. </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline" class="">Fact: </span>Despite rigorous cost management programs, higher drug, equipment, and staffing costs —added to stringent safety mandates —magnify financial pressures. The problem isn’t local but the solution is: a community that steps up and declares, with funding, “we support local, quality health care.”</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline" class="">Bottom line: </span>Our not-for-profit 501(c)3 hospital’s public mandate is undercut by compromised government medical payment systems. A parcel tax is the best District option for stabilizing today’s variable cash flow and annual </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">revenue. Local control demands the local commitment to pass Measure C. Most similar California district hospitals charge parcel taxes — and few match our wide services, especially labor and delivery, lab and blood testing advances, comprehensive diagnostic imaging, orthopedics, ophthalmology, pain management, home health/hospice, cancer testing and care.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 23px;" class="">WHAT IS A PARCEL TAX? WHO VOTES? WHY 67% NEEDED FOR PASSAGE?</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">A parcel tax is a special district’s sole electoral option to increase funding for operations. All registered voters in the Mendocino Coast Health Care District may vote in the primary election. <b class="">Last day to register is Monday, May 21st</b>; voting is by mail and at polling stations. By law, Measure C only passes with 2/3s or 67% voter approval; if done, funding arrives January, 2018. </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">The State offers a Property Tax Postponement Program for low-income owners. Contact the State Board of </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Minion Pro'; font-size: 24px;" class="">Equalization: (800) 952-5661. The county offers a tax waiver for owners with contiguous parcels; contact the County Assessor’s Office (707) 234-6800.</div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; font-size: 26px;" class="">Paid for by the Yes on Measure C Campaign Committee</div><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial; font-size: 26px;" class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>