Countywide : $22.4 Million OKd for Health Purposes

By a 4-0 vote, Orange County supervisors Tuesday approved spending $22.4 million in state tobacco tax funds on a health care agenda that includes trauma care, two birthing centers, community clinics and expanded health services for children.

Half a dozen community leaders from United Way’s Chauncey Alexander to Faith Hagerty of the Orange County Coalition of Community Clinics praised county officials for being “receptive,” “reasonable” and taking the right step toward care of the county’s poor.

The money is Orange County’s share of a new surtax levied on cigarette and other tobacco products under Proposition 99, a statewide initiative approved by voters in 1988. The law mandates that the funds be spent on health care.

Allocation of the money may be weeks away because state officials still must review Orange County’s plan.

Key measures in the plan approved Monday include $2.3 million for new birthing centers for low-income women run by UCI Medical Center in Orange and Western Medical Center-Anaheim. The two facilities together are to handle up to 2,000 deliveries a year and are expected to relieve severe overcrowding at UCI and other hospitals that care for low-income women.

Another $6.7 million is to go to the county’s three trauma centers. Of that, $125,000 has been reserved for a fourth trauma center that county officials are hoping will join the emergency network.

Another $1.5 million would go to 12 community clinics that provide health services for low-income county residents. And following new state mandates, the county is spending about $1 million on expanded medical screening and treatment for children to include those up to age 19. (Previously, screenings stopped at age 6.)

The rest of the money is to be distributed to local hospitals and physicians to reimburse them for medical care to indigent patients.