Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
381B Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 West Temple Street,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Michael D. Antonovich
Yvonne B. Burke
Don Knabe
Gloria Molina
Zev Yaroslavsky
Funding of Health Care Services in Los Angeles County
Dear Supervisors:
It is my understanding that your group has voted to close 16 community clinics, reduced by 25% funding for our network of private clinics partnering with the County to provide care, and approved the transition of High Desert Hospital to an ambulatory care center.
It is my further understanding that within the last decade, 50 emergency rooms and 17 trauma centers throughout Southern California have closed their doors, all because they couldn't afford to keep them open because of the ever increasing numbers of uninsured.
I'm aware of the recent study co-authored by Daniel Flaming, supported by data compiled by Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn's economic development team, that led researchers to estimate that about $1.1 billion a year is not being paid into Social Security, workers' compensation, health insurance, and other social safety-net programs to protect workers who became ill, injured, unemployed or retired, in violation of the law. This study estimated that 28 percent of the workforce in the county is paid in cash, and one in four don't have federal and state payroll taxes withheld, creating the kind of economic unpredictability that potential employers tend to avoid. We know that a large percentage of those without health insurance are illegal immigrants.
For historical perspective, I've also read the County's, 1992
"Impact of Undocumented Persons and Other Immigrants on
Costs, Revenues and Services in Los Angeles County". This
study revealed that for each dollar of tax revenue generated
by the County's 700,000 adult illegal aliens into County coffers,
it cost the County $39.50 to provide them with social services.
And if one looks at the contributions by these same illegal immigrants
to all levels of government, the Study further revealed that
for ever dollar of tax revenue generated, these same adult illegal
immigrants consumed $1.58 in social services.
So no one in County Government can claim any surprise about the
huge financial albatross that illegal immigrants represent to
Los Angeles County. While illegal immigrants certainly aren't
the sole cause of this health care financial catastrophe, they
nevertheless are a large component. While local county governments
aren't responsible for the enforcement of federal immigration
laws, they still get stuck with the check.
I'm certain that many U.S. citizens and legal residents are either denied L.A. County medical assistance or are greatly inconvenienced by having to queue-up with people who have no right to be in this country.
What distresses me further is the shameful silence by most of you supervisors about the policies of our national government that passes immigration laws which aren't enforced, and then rewards those who're successful in criminally breaching our borders with all kinds of educational, maternity, TANF and citizenship benefits. Can't you supervisors, at the bare minimum, go on public record and protest these travesties? Couldn't you instruct the L.A. County Sheriff to cooperate with the INS? Shouldn't your body play a leading role in getting the general public behind a movement to pressure the federal government to end the malfeasance and abuses of Uncle Sam? What's so sacrosanct about the reality that immigrant rights don't belong to those who have no right to be here?
It's real difficult to predict how all this will turn out. What seems certain however, is that if a sequel to President Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" is ever written, most of you won't be mentioned.
Sincerely,
Michael Scott
