Humana Hospital Closure Is a Disaster : Orange County Is a Microcosm of the National Health Care Dilemma Facing Clinton

The closing earlier this month of Humana Hospital-Westminster was viewed by the city’s mayor as “something that borders on near disaster for the city.” In a sense it was, especially for the thousands of poor people in the region who sought medical aid in its emergency room, the second busiest in the county for indigent patients.

But it also was a financial disaster for the hospital. When it closed, it had five out of every six beds sitting empty. Those empty beds also cost the community more money because such over-bedding forces a hospital to struggle with lost revenues. The hospital also suffers mounting operational losses caused by clogged emergency rooms where many treatment costs are either underpaid or not reimbursed at all.

The estimates are that about 10 other hospitals in the county are losing money and are also potential candidates to cut back or close as Humana had to do in Westminster. When that happens, people are forced to travel even farther to find care, and paramedics are taken out of the field longer, creating even more life-threatening problems.

And the loss of any existing emergency facility puts even greater strain and financial pressure on the ones that remain.

The situation Orange County finds itself in is a microcosm of the national health care problem that President-elect Clinton has vowed to address. It’s a classic case of cost shifting in which county, state and federal funds are cut. That shifts costs to hospitals, doctors, employers and ultimately to the insured who must pay higher premiums to cover those uninsured or misusing emergency room services. The reason is that they have no place else to go for basic medical care.

For example, Orange County is among the bottom three or four in the state in how much it budgets for primary medical care for poor people. The county needs more places for uninsured poor people to get medical care, not fewer. The need is to strengthen the countywide network, not weaken it.

Mayor Charles V. Smith has vowed that Westminster will do “everything within our legal means to reopen that facility.” He wants to at least get the emergency room and outpatient surgical services back in operation.

The mayor should be supported in his effort to find medical care for Westminster-area residents. It would be nice to see the overall health care problem attacked with the same dedication and determination from public officials in the county seat in Santa Ana, in Sacramento and in Washington.