On Thursday, county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and a delegation of business and labor leaders traveled to San Francisco to urge the University of California's Board of Regents to approve an agreement that would end the state's most pressing public health problem.
Three years ago, federal regulators began the process of closing down Los Angeles County's scandal-plagued King-Drew Medical Center in Willowbrook, leaving South L.A. without a public hospital. The regulators had no choice, but the fact remains that, ever since then, the mainly African American and immigrant Latino people of the area have been without even the vestigial care the old facility provided. Most residents of the community could best be described as members of the working poor, the group that has suffered the most in the current downturn.
Over the last few months, UC and county negotiators have hammered out a model agreement for reopening Martin Luther King Jr. hospital as a public/private partnership. The university would provide the doctors and pay for their malpractice insurance; L.A. County would provide $350 million in capital funds, $63 million in annual operating expenses, plus a $100-million line of credit to cover emergencies. (Actually, because of the way federal funds flow through the state to the county, a $100-million credit line is worth $200 million.)
To insulate it from the unsavory local and ethnic politics that afflicted the old King-Drew, the new hospital would be governed by an independent board -- two members to be named by the regents, two by the county, three jointly.
So what's the problem? The regents continue to vacillate. Sherry Lansing, the former film executive who heads their health services committee, says there's "a moral imperative" at stake, but she wants to make sure "this is a sound financial situation for us." Fair enough, but as Ridley-Thomas, who represents the area, points out, UC "has no financial risk of consequence. All they have to do is provide the physicians." That's true. Thus, the regents' request for additional financial guarantees and significant financial donations from private sources really is excessively cautious. The regents simply should approve this agreement as it is when they next meet in November at UCLA.
