After OPTIMA, Let’s Tackle Indigent Care Next

I read with great interest the Oct. 4 Commentaries on OPTIMA, the proposed “comprehensive” health plan for Orange County medically indigent. Chauncey Alexander’s (“It’s a Valiant--if Modest--Attempt to Aid Medi-Cal Recipients”) cogent analysis was right on target.

While improving the delivery of services to the Medi-Cal eligible population is highly commendable and long overdue, the danger is that Orange County will consider its job done and continue to be indifferent to the medical needs of thousands of people who do not qualify for Medi-Cal.

It had originally been hoped by health advocates that OPTIMA would include those eligible for the Indigent Medical Services (IMS) program and others without health coverage. This did not happen.

The consultants who designed this plan offered as a straw to be grasped the hope that money saved by OPTIMA would then be used to fund medical care for the IMS and other indigent populations.

Those of us who have become somewhat skeptical, if not cynical, through the years of fighting the system believe that any savings will be used to raise the reimbursement rate of Medi-Cal rather than extend the area of coverage.

OPTIMA should be lauded for what it can do, but should not be touted as the ultimate solution for Orange County’s responsibility to the medically indigent as stated in the Health and Welfare Code.

Thousands will still have no alternative other than emergency rooms and the already overburdened community clinics.

JEAN FORBATH

Costa Mesa