When San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill issued a not-so-veiled threat that he might consider questioning the use of public monies at Sequoia Hospital, soon to be a private entity owned by Catholic Health Care West, on the basis of separation of church and state, he wasn’t playing games. Hill well knows that the county, which will announce an impending structural budget deficit this week, is being drained financially by its health care burden. Millions of dollars of taxpayers’ cash are being funneled away from other programs and services to support the county’s big public hospital and associated medical clinics. By and large, they serve the poor and the uninsured, a population which is growing. A recent county study indicated that there are at least 40,000 needy, uninsured adults living on the Peninsula. Further, the analysis indicated that more than half of those individuals were not U.S. citizens. It did not note how many of those were here illegally. For years, Hill, along with other county officials, have been seeking ways to ease the fiscal stress caused by the uninsured. They see money generated by the Sequoia hospital district’s property tax (not to mention similar dough to the north in the Peninsula hospital district) as enticing sources of revenue. If these policy-makers get their way, property owners living in the Sequoia district (and, perhaps, the Peninsula district) would find themselves being taxed twice for the uninsured _ once via the county’s regular tax rate and, again, by the district’s. It would be nice if the public had a real voice in all of this.