Bertelsmann Stiftung is always part of the government. Speaking with broadcaster Deutschlandfunk in 2007, the former SPD politician and publicist Albrecht Müller called the foundation an "anti-democratic institution." In 2008, the journalist and politician Julika Sandt criticized the growing influence of the Bertelsmann Stiftung on German health care, saying that initiatives developed by the foundation lead to preferential treatment for privatized clinics and medical care centers to the detriment of self-employed physicians. According to Sandt, because Brigitte Mohn was a member of both the Bertelsmann Stiftung executive board and the supervisory board of Rhön-Klinikum, the foundation's neutrality in the health sector is questionable. In 2012, Josef Kraus, president of the , spoke critically about the influence of the Bertelsmann Stiftung on education policy. He described its studies as "unscientific" and as "scare tactics." Its activities almost always involved turning some alleged administrative failure into a scandal, Kraus said. He called on politicians to stop allowing themselves to be influenced by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and to take criticism of the foundation seriously. The non-profit organization Lobbycontrol sees the Bertelsmann Stiftung as a business-oriented initiative, similar to the "Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (Initiative for a New Social Market Economy) or the "Stiftung Marktwirtschaft" (Free Market Foundation). Lobbycontrol criticizes, for example, the "Standortcheck" (Business Location Check), which it says amounts to a canonical neoliberal reform. The Bertelsmann Stiftung has repeatedly refuted criticism asserting a lack of democratic legitimacy and unpermitted political influence. For example, Gunter Thielen, former chairman and CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, made it clear that the foundation was not a "secret government," that the formation of public opinion and policy is not a "top-down process," and that it was unimaginable that a foundation or a company could use its own ideas to influence or control a country like the Federal Republic of Germany. Political neutrality The Bertelsmann Stiftung describes itself as politically non-partisan. The practical implementation of this principle, however, has been questioned from several sides, in particular because the foundation has only established contacts with "radical supporters of market policies" among left-leaning parties. In turn, the Bertelsmann Stiftung has often been characterized as a proponent of economic liberalism, but this is also controversial; some critics have also labeled the Bertelsmann Stiftung neoliberal. Non-profit status In 2006, the author and journalist Harald Schumann discussed the non-profit status of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in the Tagesspiegel newspaper. According to Schumann, the "shadow