County Health System Faces Dire Options
Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2002
By Nicholas Riccardi and Garrett Therolf
Under the most optimistic plan, the county would have to close the emergency room at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance, eliminate trauma services at King/Drew....
The deficit stems largely from the fact that the county health system treats many of the nearly 3 million uninsured patients in Los Angeles County. Over the years, the county has lost funding while the number of uninsured people has grown.
Dr. Brian Johnston, past president of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn.and an emergency room physician:
"They should put out a public announcement in some of these communities that if something bad happens to you, you are on your own. That's a very busy trauma center. What's going to happen to those people?"
<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-052302health.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dtodays%2Dtimes>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-052302health.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dtodays%2Dtimes
Comment: Most Americans are concerned about the problems of the uninsured. They do believe that measures should be taken to assure access to care for everyone. But they are uncomfortable about increasing taxes to pay for public programs for the medically indigent. And those that have health care coverage and comfortable incomes have even greater concerns about proposals to replace their health plans with some type of government program. For these reasons there is very little pressure on legislators to seriously address the problems of the uninsured and under-insured. Most would prefer to keep their current secure status in health care even though they regret the problems of the less fortunate.
But how secure is the current status of the affluent? What does it mean to shut down trauma centers? The Institute of Medicine report released this week revealed that an uninsured auto accident victim is more likely to die than a patient with insurance, even though they both were transported to emergency facilities. If merely the insured status makes a difference, then what would be the impact of shutting down the trauma center? Obviously, they are both at much greater risk of dying if they have to be transferred to an over-crowded facility on the other side of a heavily congested city. The affluent may be relatively complacent, but they shouldn't be.
Currently in California there are proposals to increase funding of trauma care systems by tax increases. But Gov. Davis' office responded that it is unlikely that the tax increase proposals would receive enough support from the state legislature to pass. Even if they did pass, would this small patch in the gigantic voids in our system really bring us health security?
The $1.5 trillion that we are already spending is enough to fund all care for everyone, but we lack an efficient system to properly direct those funds. The solution is simple. Enact National Health Insurance now.