Orange County Cuts Funds for Emergency Health Care

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

Orange County Cuts Funds for Emergency Health Care

Source: California Healthline (http://www.californiahealthline.org) 
Date: June 13, 2007


The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday cut county funding to help compensate
physicians and hospital emergency departments for caring for uninsured patients, the Los
Angeles Times reports. 

County staff had proposed eliminating county funding for the program entirely.

The county will provide $1 million to the effort, rather than $3.5 million, and evaluate
other options for revenue for the program (Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times, 6/13). The
board of supervisors in December 2006 opted to allocate funding for emergency medical
care for the uninsured from the county general fund rather than increase base fines for
driving violations, as permitted under a state law approved in 2006. The law permits
counties to increase the base fines by 20% to fund: 

Fees for physicians who provide ED care; 
Pediatric and adult trauma care; and 
Other emergency medical services (California Healthline, 12/13/06).

Orange County supervisors are expected to approve a budget within two weeks (Los Angeles
Times, 6/13).


For more information, please visit: 
http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2007/6/13/Orange-County-Cuts-Funds-for-Emergency-Health-Care.aspx



Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/



       
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