State Cuts in Health Funds Are Criticized : Budget: Agreement reached by the Legislature eliminates $14 million for emergency care for the poor in Orange County.

Cuts in state funding for emergency medical care to the poor were described Monday as just another “devastating blow” to an Orange County program that has always been inadequately funded.

“We just lost $14 million in funding, and we’re always short there anyway,” said Ernie Schneider, county chief administrative officer. “There’s not enough money for adequate indigent care.”

The seriousness of the cuts in the long-awaited $55-billion state budget the Legislature passed Saturday was beginning to hit home Monday, especially those cuts earmarked for the county’s Indigent Medical Services program, which reimburses local hospitals for the treatment of more than 22,000 patients a year. County officials said most of the people the program covers are accident victims.

Under the budget passed by lawmakers, the Indigent Medical Services program would lose $14 million, a 55.3% reduction from its base budget of $24.6 million.

The action brought harsh criticism from all sectors of government and the health care industry.

Calling it a “tremendous hit on Orange County,” State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), said it was a “devasting blow to the program--a program with no alternative revenue sources and no safety net.”

Bergeson said the formula used to determine the amounts cut from the county program was unfair and was not agreed to by the state Senate when it passed the budget bill.

“The services are going to have to be provided. These are the people who fall through the cracks and have no means for medical care. We are required to provide the treatment, and somehow we are going to have to do it,” she said.

Bergeson and state Sens. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) and Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose) are the co-authors of a letter to Deukmejian asking him to veto the apportionment language in the bill.

Bergeson said the bill that went to the governor’s desk made the cuts to the program on a per capita basis. When the bill left the Senate, the program reductions had been substantially less for Orange County under a different formula.

Many top county officials said Monday that they are waiting to see how much money the governor would cut from the budget. Deukmejian was expected to veto hundreds of millions of dollars in programs before signing the $55-billion budget.

But the strongest reaction was to the Indigent Medical Services program cuts.

“It’s a cruel joke balancing the budget by withholding services to sick mothers and children and the working poor,” said Chauncey Alexander, chairman of the United Way Health Care Task Force. “Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor is a disgraceful activity.”

Joan Furmin, president of the Orange County Coalition of Community Clinics, said the reductions will just compound existing health care problems.

“Access will be more difficult. Medical problems will be more complex,” Furmin said. “In fact, were are going to see much more of a drain on the health system because a lot of situations which could be handled with low-cost care now will escalate.”

County figures show that the overall 1989-1990 budget for Indigent Medical Services was $33 million. But, officials said, $9 million of that came from other programs that will no longer be available for indigent care.

Jean Forbath, founder and director of the Share Our Selves Clinic, which serves the homeless and working poor in Costa Mesa, called the proposed cut “horrible news.”

“It will have a devastating effect,” Forbath said.

At the Hospital Council of Southern California, which represents the 28 largest hospitals in Orange County, vice president David Langness also expressed anger.

“My response is almost unprintable,” he said. “These are the budget cuts that everyone feared the most that will create, I think, just a massive amount of disruptions, morbidity and mortality.”

Langness said hospital representatives were lobbying Monday to head off further cuts by the governor.

Education’s TEACHING

The most important lesson of the state budget battle is that initiatives work. A20