SANTA ANA — Orange County health and governmental officials on Wednesday unveiled a plan for better, quicker and perhaps less expensive medical care for 225,000 poor people in the county.

The plan, which is something like a health maintenance organization (HMO), would cover all current Medi-Cal patients in the county. It would go into effect in about two years.

People who have Medi-Cal cards would be able to pick a doctor from a pool of Orange County physicians who take part in the plan. That doctor then would be their primary-care physician--responsible for all health care. County officials said poor people no longer would have to flock to hospital emergency rooms for non-emergency health problems.

"This (plan) is a potential benchmark for other counties in California," said County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez. He and Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder were among those presenting the plan at a press conference at the county Hall of Administration.

Wieder said: "We all know that access and financing of health care has become a national concern. In Orange County, health care issues pose a particular challenge since we do not own or operate a county hospital. . . . (Indigent) patient groups have difficulty accessing adequate health care."

The root of the problem, the various officials said, is that since Medi-Cal pays considerably less than private physicians charge, few doctors in the past have wanted to take Medi-Cal patients. Burdensome paperwork required by existing Medi-Cal has also added to the doctors' dislike, the officials said.

The result for poor people has been no family doctors, officials said. These poor people then go to hospital emergency rooms to seek a doctor even if they do not have an emergency. Since emergency rooms are expensive to operate, much Medi-Cal money is wasted on this type of patient "referral," the officials added.

The plan proposed for Orange County would lump all 225,000 Medi-Cal patients in the county into one system, to be called OPTIMA (Orange Prevention, Treatment and Intervention Medical Assistance program).

OPTIMA would pool all the Medi-Cal funding for Orange County patients. It would then use that money to pay private doctors who agree to participate. Medi-Cal, which is jointly funded by the state and federal government, spent almost half a billion dollars for treatment for poor people in Orange County last year--much of it needlessly spent at emergency rooms, according to a report given to the county task force.