USC/18/dp1st/mark2nd
By ANN DONAHUE
Staff Writer
After years of squabbling over what to do with the County-USC Medical Center, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors reached what they call a compromise solution two weeks ago.
But the compromise plan is expensive running in the range of $700 million and requires the county, state and federal government to work together to fund a project that has been stalled by political rhetoric for almost 10 years.
Under the compromise, a new County-USC hospital will be built in Boyle Heights with 600 patient beds and filled with state-of-the-art medical equipment. The cost of construction? $657.3 million.
On the site of the closed Baldwin Park Community Hospital, a satellite facility of yet-to-be-determined-size and yet-to-be-determined-cost will be built to attend to the swelling population of the area, which now provides 30 percent of the patients who go to County-USC for treatment.
Taking the middle-of-the-road proposal that’s being considered, it will cost $702.3 million to build the 600-bed replacement hospital and an 80-bed hospital in the San Gabriel Valley. Together, these two hospitals would cost about $509.2 million annually to operate.
“It sounds awfully expensive, but it’s cheaper than it is to operate the current County-USC,” said John Wallace, a spokesman for County Board Chairman Don Knabe.
In order for the compromise plan to work, the county must receive state funding, earthquake assistance dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and an extension of the federal bailout money that saved the health care system in 1995. When all of this is added in, the county will have to pay for about one-third of the tab for constructing the new hospitals.
“It’s like having a rich aunt that says ‘I’m willing to pay for half the down payment and half the mortgage once you get the place,'” said Miguel Santana, assistant chief deputy to Supervisor Gloria Molina.
Knabe and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa are hammering out the details on how much the state can kick in. The linchpin of the agreement is the size of the satellite hospital proposed for the San Gabriel Valley.
Officials hope the debate over the size of the satellite campus won’t deteriorate into the name-calling and rhetoric that stalled the discussion over the size of the main replacement hospital.
Molina, whose district includes where County-USC is located, battled vigorously for the new hospital to be built with 750 beds a number she believed was necessary to meet the needs of her constituents in the district.
But many felt the estimated price tag which varied from $818 million to $1 billion was impossible to cover. In an acrimonious decision last year, the board voted 4-1, with Molina as the sole dissenter, to build the 600-bed main replacement facility.
In response, Latino legislators in Sacramento supported a bill to withhold more than $100 million in state construction funds from the county until a larger hospital was built.
Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, said he still believes that the size of the two proposed structures must equal 750 beds.
“The county has a legal obligation and a moral obligation to provide service to the indigent,” he said. “If they contract out for hospital beds, it costs them more money I think it’s time to go above the politics and look at this as sound healthcare policy and make the commitment to meet the responsibilities.”
Although he declined to give a timeline of when the matter would be resolved, Knabe said negotiations on the satellite campus are moving along.
“I’m guardedly optimistic,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, though he added: “I would not be surprised if it didn’t move along smoothly.”
Regardless of the final size, the satellite hospital would provide pediatric, surgical, intensive care and emergency room services.
“The San Gabriel Valley is a large area that has no county health services,” Knabe said. “Now people will have a hospital in their area instead of having to catch buses to go to County-USC.”
