Commentary : Taking Responsibility for Medical Care

Although the Orange County health-care crisis and the UCI Medical Center deficit have received much media exposure in recent weeks, the problem of inadequate funding for indigent health care in Orange County has been developing for years.

The Orange County Department of Health and Human Services has a meager budget for the health care of the poor when contrasted with the massive hospital system in Los Angeles County. The truth about these poor people is that most of them are not indigent. They are working as waitresses, truck drivers, assembly-line workers and in other occupations that can’t afford employee health plans. They are contributing to Orange County’s economy and trying to make a living. During illnesses, pregnancy or injury they occasionally fall through the health-care cracks that are rapidly becoming canyons.

Although there is no Orange County Hospital , the county still has the responsibility to cover UCIMC’s operating deficits, rather than relying on state taxes for education paid by taxpayers throughout California. Otherwise, lab space, equipment, new classrooms, dormitories and other essential items that students need in the rapidly expanding University of California system will not be budgeted.

Asking the University of California at Irvine to pay for Orange County’s health care would be the same as asking UCLA to pay for Harbor General Hospital’s deficit or USC to pay for L.A. County General’s. In both cases, Los Angeles County pays for the hospitals’ operations and deficits.

The people of Orange County need to be more informed and involved. Many small-business owners and employees do not have health insurance coverage and without county health programs and adequate Medi-Cal funding, they are at serious risk. Small medical problems that should be cared for then needlessly become major ones.

The only answer to this crisis is a commitment of more county dollars to finance a true county hospital and clinic system. The Board of Supervisors has historically under-funded health care, using its federal revenue sharing funds predominantly for other services. When revenue sharing ended, supervisors continued to support those other services, shortchanging health care. County government may believe that health care is the University of California Board of Regents’ problem. The Board of Regents rightfully thinks otherwise.

The public attitude about supporting health care appears to be changing. Hopefully this will influence the county board. In this centennial year, Orange County is celebrating and realizing that it has matured into a thriving urban community. But along with glossy pictures of shiny business centers and performing arts centers are some other pictures of a collapsing health care system that will affect all of us.

The trauma center network may be the first to fall. The scenario of a Newport Beach or Mission Viejo traffic accident . . . that has no trauma center to receive (a victim) may be just around the corner. We must do something fast. A task force made up of small-business executives, health-care workers, hospital administrators, insurance executives, university officials, county government representatives and concerned residents should be created to draft a master plan for health care and establish a county hospital and clinic system. This will provide care for a desperate populace and take the burden off the university’s Medical Center and other hospitals in similar financial difficulty.

The task force could recommend sources of funding, possibly even a bond issue similar to the one proposed in Los Angeles County.

If we work together, we still have time to circumvent tragedy.