ACMC gets boost from Alliance but still short

The Alameda County Medical Center recently submitted a budget to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors showing a $7.7 million deficit for the fiscal year beginning in July. This deficit does not include:

• Keeping the Neuro-Respiratory Unit open at Fairmont Hospital, which would mean at least an additional $1.3 million deficit. Vote Health believes it is the duty of the county to continue providing care for the patients on this unit, who are among the most vulnerable in the system.
  
• Money to improve waits for specialty clinic appointments, which can take up to six months. Shorter waits would obviously improve care, and could make the Medical Center more competitive with private providers, boosting revenues.
  
• All of the escalating energy costs, as yet unknown.

Shortly after the ACMC revealed its deficit, the county itself declared a $6.7 million deficit for the coming year, asking its four major departments to take cuts of $1.675 million each. Deficits of various amounts are predicted most years and change rapidly as funding sources appear and disappear. The Alliance for Health, the public managed care provider for MediCal in our county, had amassed approximately $21 million since it began operating 6 years ago. Vote Health members spoke out with others at the April Alliance board meeting, asking the Alliance to give the Medical Center $7.7 million to close the deficit and another $2.5 million to decrease waits for the specialty clinics.
 
Our trip to the Alliance's San Leandro offices was well rewarded. The Board voted to give the Medical Center $7.7 million, and will discuss the additional $2.5 million at the next meeting on May 24th, 6 p.m., 1850 Fairway Drive, San Leandro. Come show your support for the Medical Center, which is the primary provider for the indigent in our community and deserves to have the MediCal dollars the Alliance has accumulated.
 
Vote Health will continue to press the county to commit the following to the ACMC for this budget year:

• $1.3 million to continue providing neuro-respiratory care at Fairmont;
  
• $1.5 million for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine for the new building on the Highland campus;
  
• $2.5 million to increase staffing in the specialty clinics (we are asking for a commitment to this if the Alliance does approve this request on May 24th).

Support the ACMC by contacting your Supervisor at (510) 272-6347 and letting her/him know you believe the county should support the Medical Center with the sums listed above; write to them at 1221 Oak St., Oakland, CA 94612; or come to the next Budget Hearing on Health on June 18th at 1:30 p.m. to speak on this important matter.

Austin, Texas, March 13, 2001

Mark Lindgren, chair of Health Care for All—Oregon (HCFAO), spoke at a meeting of Health Care for All—San Francisco on May 6. He reported that petition forms were approved by the state to put the Oregon Comprehensive Health Care Finance Act initiative on the November, 2002 ballot. Over 100,000 signatures are needed by July 7, 2002.
 
Vote Health will send out a fund-raising letter shortly to assist HCFAO in this important action. If we can get one state to succeed at establishing a universal health care system, it can serve as a model for the rest of us.
 
The plan would be governed by a publicly accountable, nonprofit, independent Health Care Finance Board, and health care practitioners will remain free and independent agents in the private sector. The initiative is sixteen pages.
 
Oregon has 344,000 uninsured out of a population of 3.4 million, 77,000 of the uninsured being children. Many, like most states, live in rural areas. Doctor shortages exist in many areas, and public services are under-funded.
 
HCFAO was founded in 1994 at the time of the Clinton investigation into universal health care, and is an independent grassroots organization of citizen activists, health care professionals, educators and other groups. It now has chapters in Corvallis, Lane County, Portland and Rogue Valley. The pioneering ballot initiative filed by HCFAO will ensure access to affordable, quality health care for all Oregon residents through a comprehensive plan providing payment for medically necessary health services. The governor of Oregon supports single payer health care (unlike Gray Davis), which may help the initiative.
 
HCFAO is looking to those who helped with Prop 186 to get ideas on how to respond to insurance company opposition. The organization also needs money to develop focus groups, hire an organizer, and take polls to better target the campaign.
 
To help, please dig up any materials that health insurance companies put out during Prop 186 and mail them to Health Care for All-Oregon, P.O. Box 11156, Eugene Oregon. And, of course, send money. For more info, contact Mark Lindgren at marklindgren2@home.com or check out their Web site at www.healthcareforalloregon.org.