Repairing the Damage

A basketful of bills to remedy the devastating cuts in health services imposed by Gov. George Deukmejian’s budget vetoes is now offering a new opportunity to minimize some of the most punishing results of the vetoes and at least hold the line on basic programs.

The bills would offer up to $20 million for trauma centers, $20 million for outpatient care in hospitals where a disproportionate share of the patients cannot pay, $70 million for medically indigent adults and $4 million for prenatal care.

The closing of four trauma centers and the pending closing of a fifth center in Los Angeles County have dramatized the risks imposed by these budget cuts, risks that can touch the lives of everyone. But the other programs, concentrated on the poor, are of equal importance to public health in the state. They are manifestly cost-effective--as is particularly evident in prenatal care, which effectively reduces the higher costs that result from premature deliveries and unhealthy infants.

Deukmejian has remained silent on health care since he carried out his budget cuts. This could mean that he is reconsidering his action in thelight of the effect of what he has done--particularly in Los Angeles County, which serves a disproportionate share of the poor. The legislators are right in providing him with this second chance to moderate the effect of his vetoes.