L.A. County may close most of its clinics (pay private centers to...)

[katty]

more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-clinics14feb14,1,3482630.story

L.A. County may close most of its clinics

Facing a deficit, health officials want to pay private centers to take up the slack. Critics say the plan's logic is faulty.

By Jack Leonard and Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 14, 2008

Los Angeles County healthcare officials unveiled a draft cost-cutting plan Wednesday that calls for closing all but one of the county's dozen clinics and reduces services at its six comprehensive outpatient health centers.

Officials said a $195-million deficit makes the cuts necessary even under a "best-case scenario" for the badly strapped public healthcare system. The county faces the threat of more reductions in state and federal aid in the next few months. Health department officials have privately floated the possibility of deeper cuts if the projected deficit grows.

The current proposal, if approved by the Board of Supervisors, would dramatically retreat from the county's longtime role in providing primary care to the indigent. The clinics and comprehensive centers get about 400,000 primary care visits a year, nearly two-thirds from uninsured patients.

Officials said they plan for private, nonprofit clinics to step into the gap and provide care to most of the displaced patients for a lower cost than the public system. The county currently has contracts with private clinics, and those would be expanded.

[kestrel91316]

1. This would be a GREAT idea:

".....Officials said they plan for private, nonprofit clinics to step into the gap and provide care to most of the displaced patients"...........IF we actually HAD any such animals here. Other then Planned Parenthood and the LA Free Clinic, we don't have any "private, nonprofit" clinics that I know of. FOR profit, OTOH, we have PLENTY of.

Waits at emergency clinics here can already run in excess of 12 hours. I can see that doubling or more as people are forced to go to the only remaining health care facilities that HAVE to see them.

[katty]

2. I know, I live in LA--this is already a nightmare

[kestrel91316]

6. I know someone who just last week got in a car accident

(hit-and-run of course), and had a friend drive her to the ER (she got tweaked in a major way and could barely walk (should have called paramedics, obviously, but the COPS said she wasn't hurt). She waited at the ER in Glendale for TWELVE HOURS before giving up and going home, in terrible pain.

People DIE WAITING in our ER's already. I can't imagine what it's gonna be like if they shut all the clinics for the poor.

But you know, we gotta pay for the Waronterra(TM) somehow. Guess this is how.

Maybe we can invent a new Waronterra medal, call it the Black Heart, and award it to those patriotic Americans who give their lives in the ER waiting for care........

[hlthe2b]

3. Anothee death nail

in our "excellent" health care & public health systems...

[SharonAnn]

7. They can't afford government care but they can afford to pay for private care? WTF?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Besides, here's what happened when the UK tried that on a small scale:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7240957.stm

Private clinics carrying out NHS care are not seeing as many patients as they should, but they are still getting paid as their income was guaranteed.

Private treatment centres were set up to do minor surgery and diagnostic tests, in a bid to cut waiting lists.

Figures show that just four of the 25 such clinics created in the first wave of openings are doing enough work.



Some are only doing 50% of the work specified in their contract.

[katty]

5. interesting, this is exactly what I would expect...it's becoming

an increasingly tragic, scandal here in LA.